


^ 

^^^^. 



> 



-^-' 






.0' 



o 












^ "•^^V.T^ 'A ^^ - o , , 



>^^ . 



/■'-^ 



-^ cr 



° " « ^ "^o 










I; 



^^, 






■,^' 




£^' 



'^, 



1/ 







.0 vl 






^J-„ c'* 






^ ^<^, 




^- 



\,<f r^m.'' 



:'%s^fim 






^ 









^X^ 



>\ 



y ^^ 



^ ... 

^* ^ ^ W^^ 






%. 



^- 



BESSBOEO 



A HISTORY 



OlE' 



'VESTPORT, ESSEX CO., N. Y. 



CAROLINE HALSTEAD ROYCE. 



v^ 






T(W^ Odiex ^ 



< 



CopyrhjJif, 1902, Jin 



^ 

■^ 









\ 






Will no one tell me wliat ssiie sinigs ? 

Perhaps the plaintive Euml>erR fiow 
For old, iinhappY. fttr-off thicg?^^. 

And battles Icma: ago. 
O'r is it some more humble h^y, 
Familiar matter of to-day ? 
Some natural sorrow, loss or. pain, 
T!iat has been, and may be again? 



% 
^ 



.^ 



^ 

•<<^ 









^< 



To 

]m:y :mothe:r. 

X(f one n'ill rrrr cure for iiiij buol' fis sj/i- ironlil liare 
i'lred for it. 

H<t(l sj/r I'lrcil, she ironhl Imre helped nie to nidke if 
I 'iter tjKi II it is. 

Af< slie Inieir <iJl fjic pleasure of cnlti rolril f^nirrrs^ Imt 
>'ill tros plensed irifji iiotjiiiit/ so iiiurji os iritli a hand fid 
(/' the wild honei/snrl'le irhich (jroffs on our rorkif ledges^ 
> ., th(fii(/h she hnew the Lest thot was in literature, her de- 
I'xjhl i)i a hook of mine woidd have been heyond measure. 
Thro\ojh her am I most c o^ehj connerted witlt the sioil of 
r'hich 1 write, a lid to no one else can T (five jiii/ Ixml:. 



1^ 






^^>^ 
P^ 



" f^y hafeve? toitkdroAos us from tlic^ 'ftyi''Kr of our senses, 
whatever m,akes the po,sty the distant or the fdure prfdond- 
vo-te over the present _ odvnyir.ea us m. thp dignikj ivf flmik.- 
'btg beings'" 

— Sommel John sion. 



I 






<3hronological Account. 

I_ Discovery aud ludiau Occupatiou. 

II — French and Indian War. 
Ill— Gilliland and Bessboro. 
IY__ Raymond and the Revokitiou. 

V — Original Patents. 
VI— Early Settlement. 1785 to 1815. 
Yll-War of 1812. 
VIII— 1815 to Civil War. 
IX— Civil War to 1875. 

X— 1875 to 1902. 




Cemeteries O 
Lighthouses p 
Scale 3 HiUi • 1 inch 



I^rrata on Map. 

The engraver has omitted to indicate "the Narrows" in 
the lake, between Basin Harbor and the opposite shore. 

The light-houses at Crown Point and Split Rock are 
omitted, and also the "Hoisington cemetery," on the road 
from Westport to Meigsville, where the road crosses the 
brook. 

The camp at Nichols Pond is on the island in the pond, 
and not at the southern end of the pond. 

The little island just south of Arnold's Landing is called 
on the latest Government survey "Rock Island," but the 
more common name is Clara's Island. 



At the Centennial Celebration of the formation of 
the county of Essex, N. Y., held in June of 1899 at the 
Court House in Elizabethtown, preparation was made 
for the presentation of the history of each town in the 
county. The choice of the authors of these histories 
was left with the supervisors of the several towns. In 
the case of Westport the writer was requested to per- 
form this task, which was accordingly attempted, with 
very little knowledge of its requirements, and no more 
than a general interest in the subject. There were two 
months in which to write the history. As for mater- 
ial, there was the History of Essex County, by Winslow 
C. Watson, admirable in eve?-y way, but with little bear- 
ing directly upon the story of Westport, and the later 
histor}', published in 1885 b}^ Smith, with' several pages 
of rather incoherent information upon the subject. 
Then there was the fine Atlas of Essex County, pub- 
lished in 1876, and a friend lent me the New York 
Gazetteer of 1860. I went to look at Miss Alice Lee's 
first map of the village, made in 1800, and copied the 
letter which she had carefully framed, written by 
Judge Charles Hatch in 1842 in regard to the early 
settlement of the town. Mrs. Francis L. Lee lent me 
Palmer's History of Lake Champlain, imd one day 1 
went into the Town Clerk's office and took a hast}- 
look at the old book of the town records, copying the 
first entry. With this equipment I went to work, and 
what I put together was read at the Ceotenuial. 



It goes without saying that even this quantity of ma- 
terial could not have been well digested in two month's 
time by a writer entirely new to the w^ork, and I found 
m^^self haunted by continual discoveries of the incom- 
pleteness, and, in some particulars, the actual untruth 
of my so-called "histor3\" This was enough to com- 
plete the fascination of the subject, and since then it 
has formed my chief mental occupation to find out 
what was really true about mj native town. I grew to 
respect my subject more and more, and the mere at- 
traction of my own interest seemed to throw in m}^ way 
material hitherto undreamed of. Cousins in Chicago 
sent me the priceless Map of Skene's Patent. Miss 
Alice Lee's tact aud energy succeeded in recovering 
from deserts of hopeless unappreciation the map of the 
northern part -of the village, made by Diadorus Holcomb 
for "old Squire Hatch," a map of the Iron Ore Tract, 
and Burr's ma]) of the county for 1829. Mr. Henry 
Harmon Noble, of Essex, chief clerk in the State His- 
torians' office, becoming interested in my work, dis- 
covered for me in the office of the State Engineer and 
Surveyor the map and field notes of Bessboro, of which 
he secured certified copies, as well as an affidavit in 
regard to Bessboro which forms our principal evidence 
in regard to the settlement upon it. Another map by 
Piatt Rogers of the northern patents of the township 
I had the good fortune to find in the State Engineer's 
office, and received a copy of it by the kindness of Mr. 
Wm. Pierson Judson, Deput}^ State Engineer. Cous- 
ins at Basin Harbor lent me family papers out of an 



old trunk in the attic. I myself copied almost the wbole 
of the old town book, from 1815 to 1875. Mrs. J. L. 
Roberts lent me an invaluable scrap-book containing a 
miscellany of information about the Cham plain valley, 
and also, a prize which was greeted with dehght, two 
copies of the Westport newspaper published in 1 842 and 
1843. Hon. Richard L. Hand afterward presented Miss 
Lee with two more copies, of 1841 and 1844. Mr. Henry 
Richards lent me four volumes of the Documentary 
History of New York. When I began to study the 
period of Burgoyne, Mr. Henry Harmon Noble sent 
me from the State Library the following books : Bur- 
goyne's Orderly Book ; Stone's Campaign of Burgoyne; 
Memoirs of Gen. Riedesel; Journal of Madame Riedesel; 
Pausch's Journal ; and Watson's Pioneers of the Cham- 
plain Valley. From his own library he sent me Digby's 
Journal ; Hadden's Journal ; Journals of Major Rob- 
ert Rogers ; Journal of Charles Carroll, and after- 
wards Reminiscences of Bishop Wadhams, by the Rev. 
Clarence A. Walworth. For the War of 1812 I con- 
sulted Thos. Wentworth Higginson's History of the 
United States ; New York, by Ellis H. Roberts; His- 
tory of the United States, by E. Benjamin Andrews, 
and Military Papers of Daniel D. Tompkins, published 
by the State. Mr. Noble also copied for me some Mili- 
tary orders and records still in manuscript in the State 
archives, and from the papers of his grandfather Gen. 
Ransom Noble. I also received information from the 
War Department at Washiugton. 

In addition to these books, and perhaps others which 



I Lave forgotten, I have had numberless interviews 
with numberless people. Some have been w^aylaid 
upon the street with abrupt and apparently irrele- 
vant inquiries, and some have given me hours of 
delightful reminiscence. For a long time it seemed 
to me that whatever question I asked of anj' one, I was 
told to go and ask Plenry Holcomb, which I finally did, 
and was rewarded by receiving a vast deal of informa- 
tion. Mrs. William Richards has been of great help to 
me ; so has Mrs. Rarriet Sheldon and Mr. James Allen. 
If I should recount the names of all the people who 
have answered questions for me with patience and in- 
telligence I should give sotnething like a list of my 
acquaintances in Westport. I have also received valu- 
able letters from former residents, of which the most 
detailed and helpful is one from Mrs. Victor Spencer, 
Saginaw, Mich. Miss Lee gave me a package of notes 
and printed slips from Mr. David Turner, of Washing- 
ton, v/ho published tlie Westport newspaper in the 
forties. 

Books from which many items of information have 
been obtained are the life of Catherine Schuyler, by 
Mary Gay Humphreys ; Carrington's Campaigns of the 
devolution ; Bnrgoyne's Invasion, by Samuel Adam^ 
Drake ; History of the Empire State b}^ Lossing. Al- 
together indispensable has been the article in Scribner's 
Magazine for February. 1898, by Alfred T. Mahan, upon 
the Battle of Lake Champlaiu, and I shall often refer 
to Parkman's volumes upon the history of this region.' 

Of more value to me than manv books have been the 



exquisite maps of the United States Geological Survey. 
The bulletins of the New York State Museum have 
been also helpful. 

It is common in town histories to give long tables of 
genealogy, which are always of interest. This I have 
been entirely unable to do for this book. In a few in- 
stances people have very kindly supplied me with in- 
formation in regard to their lines of descent, always in 
response to my iuc[uiries, and these I have been glad 
to print, but to make an exhaustive showing of the 
subject would require years of work. No one can 
really obtain a perfect understanding of the history of 
any town without some idea of the race and descent of 
the people who live in it, and especial)}^ of those families 
which have remained in it from generation to genera- 
tion. Therefore I will give here a short account of my 
own descent, as one, I think, entirely representative of 
the town. I might have chosen the genealogy of fami- 
lies more distinguished, in remote and recent times, but 
none more typical, and, nataially, none upon which 
I could speak with so much confidence. 

I can trace three lines of descent from "first emi- 
grants,'* — the first who came to this continent from the 
old world. 

I will begin with my father's family, the Bartons. 
The first whom we know was Samuel Barton, who 
was a witness at one of the witchcraft trials in 
Salem, Massachusetts, in 1691. His testimony 
was in favor of the woman accused as a witch 
which we hope was not the result of a spirit of contra- 



i 



riness, but of an unshakable sense of justice. His wife 
was Hannah Bridges, and he had a large family, his 
youngest son becoming the ancestor of Miss Clara Bar- 
ton of the Red Cross. Another son, Joshua, was des- 
tined to have no such distinguished descendants. He 
lived in the towns of Leicester and Spencer, in Massa- 
chusetts, and his wife's name was Anna. They were 
blessed with seven children, the fourth of whom was 
Timothy, born in 1732, (and therefore of the same age 
as George Washington,) at Leicester. He fought in 
the Revolution, taking up arms at the "alarm of Ben- 
nington," when the approach of Burgoyne threatened 
every home in New England. In 1753 he married 
Hepsibah Stow, and they had also seven children, the 
third of whom was named Timothy Stow, and who en- 
listed at Charlton, Mass., in 1775. He married Phebe 
Stone, and the3^ had no less than nine children. After 
the Revolution they were stirred by that pioneer spirit 
which moved so many at that time to emigrate west- 
ward to newer lands, and they moved to Bolton, on Lake 
George, where the rest of their lives was spent, and 
where they now lie buried. Their oldest son was Simon, 
and he it was who first came into Essex county, settling 
on a farm in Moriah in 1812, and living there the rest 
of his life. He was a deacon in the Baptist church. 
His wife was Olive Cary, and it is through her that 
black eyes and hair came into the family. The origi- 
nal Bartons were blue-eyed. Simon Barton had a large 
family, well-known in this section. Perhaps the best 
known of the sons who remained in Essex county was 



Dr. LyiDan Barton, of Willsboro. The oldfst son was 
AYilliam. who settled in down Point. His son, John 
Nelson, came to Westport as a Toun<^ man, and has 
spent the greater part of his life here as a carriage ma- 
ker. Onr line of Bartons seein to have been mainly 
artisans, always fond of working with their hands. 
When one of them has become a physician, we often 
remark that he is likely to make a special t}' of surgery, 
showing this inborn tendency. A love of music also 
runs through the family but we fancj^ that it is shown 
more in the delight of making it' upon an instrument 
than in that of simply hearing it. 

The Sawyers show characteristics quite different from 
tliese. A real Saw^^er, we sa}-, can neither make a 
boot-jack nor play the fiddle. If any one of the name 
has these talents, it comes in through some other ances- 
tor. The first Sawyer of whom we know anything pos- 
itiveh^ is Thomas, born in Lincolnshire, Eng., in 1615. 
He came to Massachusetts in 1639 and settled in Lan- 
caster, where he died and w as buried, as his tombstone 
still stands to attest. In the attack upon Lancaster dur- 
ing King Philip's War, his son Ephraim was killed by 
Indians, and from that day until the Indian was driven 
west of the Mississippi, there was always a Sawyer 
fighting Indians. John, eighth in a family of nine 
children, moved to Lyme, Connecticut. His son Ed- 
ward, born at Lancaster in 1687, following the pioneer 
instincts which seem to mark the famil}^, was one of 
ten men who first settled the town of Hebron, Conn., in 
1704. His sou, born at Hebron in 1721, we always 



speak of as "Isaac, the Indian fighter." He was twice 
married, and our line comes from the second wife, an 
Irishwoman and a McFarland. (Whenever red hair, 
eloquence or a sense of humor develops in any of our 
race, it is at once ascribed to this Irish ancestress.) He 
emigrated with his family into the wilds beyond the 
Hudson river, and settled in the wilderness, high up on 
the West Branch of the Delaware river. He was there 
at the time of the Indian massacres of Wyoming and 
Cherry Valle}-, but soon removed his family to the fort 
at Schoharie, He and another man Avere captured b}' 
four Indians, but killed three of the Indians aud 
wounded the fourth, and so escaped. Stories are also 
told of his wife's courage in driving Indians away from 
the house. His son Isaac was left an orphan at an ear- 
ly age, and it was his lot to be a bound boy to a man 
who went into the howling wilderness of northern Ver- 
mont and settled at Monktou. This Isaac grew up in 
roughness and ignorance, but was destined to be re- 
deemed by the wife he married. She was Mary Wil- 
loughby, daughter of Joseph Willoughby,a soldier of the 
Revolution an i vKvi. u: o a little Baptist church which 
had sprung up in the wilderness. Isaac became con- 
verted, and then, throwing himself into his new experi- 
ence with all the fire of his fighting ancestors, began to 
preach. He knew his Bible almost by heart, and in 
those days no congregation asked for any better equip- 
ment. W^onderful stories are told of the power of his 
preaching, and perhaps there is some proof of this in 
the fact that he had five sons who also became Baptist 



ministers, all with more education than lie. He had. 
I think, four grandsons who were also preachers, but 
most of them took to the medical profession or to teach- 
ing. He journeyed over all northern New York and 
Vermont founding churches and preaching. In 1828 he 
came to the Baptist church in Westport, and remained 
as pastor six years. It was while he was here that his 
son. Miles McFarland, married my grandmother, Caro- 
line Halstead. 

For my grandmother's family I must go back to Hen- 
drick Martensen Wiltse, who came to New Netherlands 
from Copenhagen in 1655. There he married Margaret 
Meijers, and came far up the Hudson to settle at Esopus, 
There he was captured l)y Indians at the Massacre of 
AViltwyck, but escaped, and spent the rest of his life 
within the bounds of civilization, on Long Island. His 
son Martin married Maria Van Wyck, and had a son 
Marten who removed to Duchess county a.s one of the 
earliest settlers, and became one of the substantial 
Dutch farmers along the Hudson. His wife's name 
was Jannetje Suydam, and his youngest daughter, Eyda, 
I afterward Anglicized to Ida,) was boin after her father's 
<leath, in 1746. In 1764 she married Piatt Kogers, and 
in 1789 moved with him to Basin Harbor, on Lake 
Champlain. From this line of Wdtses come-s a strain 
of the art-loving, contemplative, money-making Dutch 
blood, in strong contrast U> the hardy contempt of 
hixury found in the Puritan Sawyers. 

The father of Piatt Rogers was nanied Ananias, and 
he lived at Huntington, Long Island. We fondly hojve 



to prove some clay that he desceiiderl from Thomas 
Rogers of the Mayflower, whose son William moved to 
Long Island and there had a numerous family — far too 
numerous for the comfort of the toiling genealogist. 
The Rogerses were closely connected with the Platts, 
and when the latter moved from Long Island intoDuch- 
ess county, before the Revolution, Piatt Rogers went 
also, and so met and married Eyda Wiltse. He served 
in the Continental army during the Revolution, and was 
afterward one of the "twelve patriarchs" of Plattsburgh, 
who fouuded that town in 1785. In 1789 he moved to 
Basin Harbor, on the Vermont shore of Lake Cham- 
plain, opposite Westport. He had eight children, and 
of his four sons not one ever married, so that there is 
to-day no descendant of his bearing the name of Rogers. 
His daughter Phebe married John Halstead, who sold 
a farm in Duchess county to follow the fortunes of the 
family in this region. (His daughter Ida married James 
Winans, and her descendants still live at Basin Harbor.) 
Piatt Rogers and his associates in a large land com- 
pany owned Skene's patent, on Northwest Bay, upon 
which the village of Westport now stands. After the 
death of Piatt Rogers, in 1798, a portion of this land 
fell to his daughter Phebe, and so John Halstead moved 
over the lake into the new settlement, and his was the 
first frame house built in the village, in 1800. It was 
his daughter, Caroline Eliza, who married Miles McFar- 
land Sawyer. Their daughter, Phebe Maria, married 
John Nelson Barton, and now we have brought all 
these ancestral lines to their meeting point in Westport. 



My sister and I can claim to have been born here for 
three generations, with ancestors in the CharapLain 
valley since 1785. 

Such a description of each of the old families in the 
township would show, I have concluded from my own 
knowledge of them, a marked similarity, A great pre- 
ponderance of pure English blood, coming here after 
generations of residence in New England, is a charac- 
teristic common to all. The dash of Irish blood is not 
uncommon, but the Dutch strain is less often met with. 

As for the Royces, theirs is a New England family 
too. The first record is at Lyme, Connecticut, on Long 
Island Sound, from which place the}^ moved up the 
Connecticut river, settling at Walpole, N. H. From 
that place came Willisim Royce, early in the last cen- 
tury, across the state of Vermont to Lake Champlain, 
and took the ferrj^ from Basin Harbor to Kock Harbor. 
At that time there was a well-traveled road running to 
the north across the Split Rock ridge, from the land- 
ing at Rock Harbor to Essex. By this route came 
many of the early settlers from New England into 
Essex, and some of the New Hampshire Royces owned 
tracts of laud in Essex. William Royce settled upon 
this road, on the western slope of the Split Rock mount- 
ains. He was familiarly called "Bildad" among his 
neighbors, and the old road, long since disused, is still 
spoken of as the "old Bildad road." William Royce 
had sons and daughters, and his descendants now form 
a large and clannish family connection in the towns of 
Essex and Westport, intermarried with the Mathers 



and Staftbrds and Saffords and Walkers, and other old 
names. 

This book would never have been written or printed 
except for the enthusiastic encouragement of Mrs. 
Francis L. Lee, whose recent death has been such a 
loss to the community. Herself the author of the only 
other book ever published by a Westport woman, her 
interest in this history never failed, and my pleasure 
in seeing it in print is dimmed by the thought that it 
can now bring no pleasure to her. 

One word more. I have written this history for mj- 
own to>vnspeople tirst of all — those who will care most 
for it, and who will be most charitable in their judg- 
ments. If I have made any mistake in it — and I do 
not know of anything so easy to do as making mistakes 
(unless possibly it may be seeing the mistakes of other 
people) — I hope that it will be considered a duty, and 
a kindness to me, to call my attention to it. If I have 
put any one's grandfather in the wrong place, or omit- 
ted anything whatever that some person would like to 
see printed in a history of the town, I hope I shall 
be tokl of it. Be sure that I shall not be surprised at 
any such correction, for the point of view of one person, 
and that person by no means accustomed to be in the 
center of public e^rents, cannot be expected to take in 
everything. It ma\* be — if children cry for it, as Gail 
Hamilton said — that there will be another edition some 
day, with additions and corrections. 

And for the rest — let my little book be read, as in- 
deed it has been wiitten„ in the spirit of this quotatioiL 



from a Master of Arts oration at a Harvard Commence- 
ment, by Kobert Bartlett, — 

"We are looking abroad and back after a literature. 
Let ns come and live, and know in living a high philoso- 
phy and faith; so shall we find now, here, the elements, 
and in our own good souls the fire. Of every storied 
bay and cliff" we will make something infinitely nobler 
than Salamis or Marathon. This pale Massachusetts 
sk}', this sandy soil and raw wind, all shall nurture us. 
[htUke all the world before tis, our oidi age and land shall 
he classic to ourselves. 

CAROLINE HALSTEAD ROYCE. 

Westport-on-Lake-Champlain, January, 1902, 



God giveth us Remembrance as a shield 
To carry into warfare, or a cloak 
To keep us warm when we walk forth alone 
'Tis never good nor blessed to forget. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



GKNKRAL DESCRIPTION. 

Westport is a large, thinly settled township in the 
Adirondack region of northern New York. It is one 
of the eighteen towns of the most mountainous county 
in the state, — that of Essex. Essex county has seven 
towns which border on Lake Champlain, and of these 
Westport is the central one. Its southern boundary is 
very ne&^rly coincident with the parallel of 44 deg. north 
latitude. This parallel crosses Lakes Huron and Mich- 
igan, and the state of Oregon, touches the city of Avig- 
non, in the south of France, and crosses the Gulf of 
Genoa. The meridian of Westport lies between 3 ^ 
and 43 ^ east of Washington. 



1^ HISTORY OF WESrrORT 

NAME. 

The name of Westport was given to the town in 1815, 
after it had known at least thirty j^ears of recorded 
history. Nothing is more unlikely than that it was 
named after the English Westport, in Devonshire, near 
Plymouth,— the Westport from which Sir Francis 
Drake set sail for the Spanish main. Neither was it 
named from the town on beautiful Clew Bay, in the 
west of Ireland, in Connaught, where was the family 
seat of that Lord Westport who had Thomas de Quincey 
for his tutor. It is true that William Gilliland was an 
Irishman, and that if any man had a right to name this 
town, that right was his, but he never called it West- 
port". His name for the place was BESSBORO, after 
his daughter Elizabeth. 

This name we have taken the liberty to restore upon 
onr title-page and cover. Of all the twelve original pat- 
ents into which the soil of our township was divided, as 
they w^ere granted by British king or American Congress, 
one only was named and settled by the man who first 
owned it, and that was Gilliland's Bessboro. Upon it 
stood the first settlement, and the only one before the 
Bevolutiou, which broke into the monotony of the 
primeval forest. Had the princely plans of Gilliland 
been fulfilled, the quaint and pretty name would never 
have been changed. Had George the Third of Eng- 
land been a sensible man, had Benedict Arnold been an 
honest one, — in a word, if the pioneer work of William 
Gilliland had not been swept clean out of the Cham- 






I 



HISTORY OF W£STPO/rr :i 

plain valley by the ebb and flow of the tides of the 
Kevolution, the place would still be kuown by the 
household name of the little daughter. It pleases us 
to recall it, with its suggestion of family atTectiuu and of 
baronial rights, and we offer it to the memory of oue 
of the most romantic and picturesque figures in the 
history of this region. 

"Elizabethtown" is only a paraphrase of "Bessboro," 
more stately and less musical. It was chosen for the 
title of the new township erected in 1798, comprising 
the present townships of Elizabethtown and Westport. 
It was then thirty-four years since Gilliland's flrst en- 
trance into the Champlain vallej^ as a colonizer, and he 
himself had been dead two years, but his claim to con- 
sideration was still recognized in the choice of a name. 
It is thought that those who named the township at 
that time meant to honor the wife of Gillilaud, rather 
than his daughter, who bore the same name. 

That Elizabeth, by the way, who has been so honored 
in our nomenclature married Daniel Ross, First Judge 
of the Court of Common Pleas of Essex county, and 
many of her descendants are still living in the county. 
She was a child only one or two years old in 1764, 
when the patent of Bessboro was first surveyed and 
named, and was at that time Gilliland's youngest child, 
though others were born afterward. 

The village of Westport was originally called "North- 
west Bay," taking its name from the bay at the head of 
which it stands. This bay is one of the largest on the 
lake, and was named ver}^ early in its bistory. The 



4 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

French called it "Bale des Eocher Fendus/'or "Bay of the 
Split Rocks," and it is so marked on Sauthier's map of 
1779. It is interesting to note how plainly this name 
indicates the approach of the French discoverers from 
the north. When the early explorers had occasion to 
refer to the bay, they said, "It is that great bay which 
you enter after passing Split Rock, keeping to the deep 
water along the cliffs, as a careful sailor naturally will.'' 
On the other hand, the name of Northwest Bay shows 
just as clearly the approach of the English from the 
south. The bay west of Crown Point fort, to which 
we now give the old name of Bulwagga,"^ was then 
called West Bay, and it seems plain that Northwest 
Bay was named by the English with reference to this, 
reckoning the points of the compass from their most 
important post, Crown Point. 

Though officially named Westport in 1815, the vil- 
lage retained its early name for many years. As late 
as 1840 we find mentioned even in the town records 
both Northwest Bay and Pleasant Valley (the old name 
of Elizabethtown). Old people to this day speak of 
going to "the Valley," and to "the Falls," and, especially 
if they live on the high lands near the Black River, 
"down to the Bay." Old letters are still preserved 
directed to "Northwest Bay, Elizabethtown," written 



*NOTE. Governor Gtorge Clinton called it "BuUwagen Bay," June 13, 17S0, in 
a letter to W^ashington, (CI nton Papers, MSS. Doc. No. 2970,) and al-o in a letter 
to Gen. Howe, June 14, 1780, (.C P. 2972,) and in a Ittter 10 Col Robert Van Rens- 
selaer, (date aboutjune 2, 1780,) writes, "Your letter of last night dated at BuU- 
wagen Bay." This was during the pursuit of Sir. John Johnson after he had his 
raid on the Mohawk valley, and was making his escape to Canada. 

- Letter from H. H. NOBLE. 



HJSTOEY OF WESTPOJ^T 5 

before the days of post-office stamps, and evidently in- 
tended to be carried by private messenger. 

The township of Westport contains two post- 
offices, Westport and Wadhams Mills, the latter 
built upon the falls of the Boquet river, in the 
northern part of the town. This village was named 
after General Luman Wadhams, an early resident and 
mill-owner, who was prominent in the annals of the place. 

It is likely that the present name was given to our 
town by "old Judge Hatch," who wrote his name 
"Charles Hatch, Esquire," and was a leading figure in 
our ancient history. He was one of a committee of 
three appointed to run the line dividing the original 
EHzabethtown, which stretched from Keene to the shore 
of Lake Champlain, into two townships, the eastern of 
which was the present Westport. Tradition has not 
handed down to us the names of the other members of 
the committee, but it is plain that "the old Squire," as 
we call him, must have known the choice and agreed to 
it. A wild fancy suggests that one of that committee 
was a Scotchman, born near the West Port of Edin- 
burgh, and had ancestors who were "out in the '45," 
and sang, (if the song was written then,) 

"Then up with thp West Port an' let us gae free, 
And its ho! for the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!" 

But the reason for the name is obvious enough, and 
the committee were not trying to be original. Doubt- 
less they relished the commercial sound of the "port" 
and saw visions of the harbor filled with shipping, and 



6- HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

great riches coming from the iron mines. The}- had 
never seen the geographical gazetteer of 1900, with col- 
umn after column of an unbroken succession of places 
named Westport ! We may look upon it now as an in- 
teresting language-proof that an Essex county lake 
town, in the old days, always looked to the lake for its 
uture. 



BOUNDARIES. 

Westport is bounded on the north by the towns of 
Lewis and Essex, on the east by the state of Vermont, 
on the south by the town of Moriah, and on the west 
by the town of Elizabethtown. 

The north boundary is a straight line, run by survey- 
or's chain and compass. It was intended to be a due 
east-and-west line, but owing to the imperfections of 
surveyors' instruments in the eighteenth century, when 
the line was run, it has a slight inclination to the north- 
east and south-west.* 

*NOTE While studying the subject of the old town lines, a letter was received 
from Mr. Wm. Pierson Judson, Deputy State Engineer, with the following ex- 
planation : 

"The lines which are shown on the United States Geological Survey maps 
are True, (or astronomical,) North -and-South and True East-and-West, whilethe 
old Town lines, to which-you refer, are the magnetic East-and-West lines of 1772 
The deviation of these old lines is the magnetic declination of the needle at the 
time the surveys were made. The question as to how much this declination was, 
and what the correct direction of these lines should be, is one which has been, and 
now is, before the Courts, and has been the subject of much discussion and many 
opinions." 

This letter is intended to answer the question in a general way, and is not to be 
taken as specifically applying to any particular line or set of lines. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 7 

It would appear from some old records that the north 
line was originally intended to run to the mouth of the 
Black river, but if so, a change was made at some time 
unrecorded, perhaps when a new survey rectified the 
lines of the patents. 

We learn from the old town records that in 1848 our 
northern boundary was in danger. At the town meet- 
ing in March every votar gave his voice iu support of a 
resolution setting forth that the citizens of Westport 
did protest against a petition from the town of Essex 
to the state Legislature, which petition prayed that a 
strip one mile wide of our domain should be set off to 
our northern neighbor. Our supervisor, then John H. 
Low, was authorized to send a copy of the resolution 
to our Representative at Albany, and the measures 
taken were plainly sufficient to prevent further aggres- 
sion from the north. I do not understand this at all, 
but I suspect a "school house war," over a school dis- 
trict which lay in both towns. 

The eastern boundary is the irregular and invisible 
line, drawn through the waters of Lake Champlain, 
which marks the division between New York and Ver- 
mont. It is not equidistant from shore to shore, but 
f.Jlows the channel, or deepest part of the lake. The 
towns east of this line are Ferrisburgh and Pauton, in 
Addison county, Yt. 

The southern boundary is a straight line, except for 
a small jog on the east side of Bald Knob, made for the 
sake of consistency with the lines of some of the lots of 
the Iron Ore Tract. This line was run iu 1849. From 



.s' HI STORY OF WKSTJ'Oirr 

1815 to 1849 the boundary was a diagonal line from the 
sonth-east corner of Elizabethtown to "the old ore-bed 
wharf," which was the terminus of one of the roads from 
the Cheever ore-bed. This included Bald Knob and Bart- 
lett pond, as well as the bus^^ mining settlement of "the 
Cheever." As a larger and larger population clustered 
around the mine shafts, there was, of course, an in- 
creased number of voters, who were obliged to go to the 
village of Westport, eight or nine miles away, to cast 
their votes. With a polling place only two miles awa}', 
at Port Henry, this came to seem quite absurd, and 
steps were soon taken to set off this southern triangle 
to the town of Moriah. Our present southern boundu- 
ry was determined by the southern line of Gilliland's 
Bessboro, as directed by the act of the Legislature 
Avhich made the change. 

The northern part of the western boundar}' follows 
the course of the Black river, "as it winds and turns." 
The town line is not in the middle ci the stream, but 
follows the eastern bank. Consequently evei'y bridge 
which crosses Black river is upon Elizabethtown terri- 
tory, and must be built and repaired at the expense 
of that town. This canny arrangement is due to the 
shrewdness of Squire Hatch, bent upon the advantage 
of his own town, while the commissioners from Eliza- 
bethtown thought only of keeping control of as much 
of the water power as possible.^ 



*NOTE. After this was written, appeared in the Elizabethtown Post (George 
L. Brown, editor,) the following- which completes the history of this boundary 
line : 



iiiSToiiY OF wKsrroirr 9 

CHAPTER XIII. 
AN ACT for dividing Elizabethtown, in the County of Essex. 

Passed March i^, 1815. 

I. Be it enacted by the people of the State of New York, represented in Senate 
and Assembly, That from and after the first Monday of April next, all that part of 
Elizabethtown, in the county of Essex, bounded as follows, to-wit ; Beginning on 
the north line of the said Elizabethtown at the mouth of the Black river; thence 
up the said river as it winds and turni on the east shore of said river, until it in - 
tersects the south line of Morgan's patent; thence due south to the north line of 
Moriah; thence easterly on said line of Moriah to the ore bed wharf ; thence east 
to the east line of this State; thence aortherly on the east line of this State to tlic 
south-east corner of Essex; thence west on the south line of Essex to the place of 
beginnmg be, and hereby is erected into a separate town, by the nam* of Westport, 
and that the first town meeting be held at the dwelling house now occupied by 
Charles Hatch, in said town. 

II. Be it further enacted, that all the remaining part of Elizabethtown shall be 
and remain a separate town by the name of Elizabethtown and that the next tow n 
meeting shall be held at the dwelling house now occupied by Norman Newell and 
son in said town. 

III. And be It further enacted, That as soon as may be after the first Tuesday 
in April next, the supervisors and overseers of the poor of the said towns of Eliz- 
abethtown and Westport, on notice first being given by the supervisors of said 
towns for that purpose, shall meet together and divide the money and poor belong- 
ing to the town of Klirabethtown previous, agreeable to the last tax list, and that 
each of the said towns shall forever thereafter respectfully maintain their own poor. 

The above is copied from page 100 of the bound volume of the Session Laws of 
1S14-15. The late Judge Charles Hatch, who built the fine old brick mansion in 
1825 which still stands in the village of Westport, who was noted for cunning and 
shrewdness, is credited with having drafted the above copied law, making the line 
between Elizabethtown and Westport follow the east bank of the Black River so 
that the former town would be obliged to build the bridges across that stream. 
However, in due time the matter was tested. It came about that a new bridge 
was needed across the Black River near the Nathaniel Pierson place just above 
Meigsville proper, there being long and somewhat expensive "approaches" to 
construct each side of the stream. The late Jacbb Lobdell, son of Captain John 
Lobdell, of Battle of Plattsburgh fame, was Highway Commissioner in Elizabeth - 
town, the late Marcus Storrs holding that office in the town of Westport. Action 
was commenced in March, 1870, to compel the town of Westport to stand half the 
expense of conatructinjf the bridge, approaches, etc. Richard L. Hand acted as 
counsel for Elizabethtown, WaUo, Tobey & Grover acting in behalf of Westport. 
The matter in dispute was finally referred to Peter S. Palmer, the late well-known 
Plattsburgh lawyer and historian. He decided, in accordance with the general 
statute applying to such cases, that the towns of Eliaabethtown and Westport 
were jointly and equally liable to the expenses incident to bridge construction, etc., 
along the Black River town line. Reference to page 50 of the pamphlet of proceed- 
ings of the Board of Supervisors for the year 1S74 shows that a judgment for $300 
was paid by Westport. 



10 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

The southern part of the western boundary is a 
straight line drawn from the Black river to the south 
line of Elizabethtown. The point at which this line 
touches the Black river is also the point at which the 
river is touched by the north line of Skene's patent, 
and was determined by that fact. This was intended 
to be a due north-and-south line, but it has the same 
variation as all the early patent lines, a slight inclina- 
tion to the north-west. 

There was a dispute over the location of the south- 
western corner of the town after the iron mines near 
Mineville began to rise in value. All the boundary lines 
were very clear on the map, but standing among the 
rocks and trees on the mountain side, it was not so easy 
to prove just where the early surveyors had intended 
them to run. So a new survey was ordered, and it was 
discovered that the settlement which had been from the 
first called "Seventy-five," because it was believed to 
lie upon Lot No. 75 of the Iron Ore Tract, in Eliza- 
bethtown, actually lay upon Lot No. ^8 in Westport 
and Lot No. 47 in Moriah. There was a feeling of 
gratification in Westport at the time to find that she 
had a larger share than was supposed in this rich terri- 
tory, and it is curious to reflect how little it matters 
now. None of our ancient border wars would be pos- 
sible to-day. They were all brought on by economic 
conditions no longer to be found. The water power of 
the Black river is now worth no one's scheming. "The 
Cheever" and "Seventy-five" put no large taxes into the 
hands of the collector, nor do they furnish voters for 



II I STONY OF WKSTI'Oirr 11 

town meeting day. Rather lias the town doled out its 
meagre charity to the poor who were left stranded at 
Sevent3'-five for years after the mines shut down. To- 
day I believe there are no more souls to be found there 
than lived ou the dry, hilly farms before ore began to 
be raised from the Thompson shaft, and the short, l)right 
day of its prosperity dawned. 

Giving measurements which do not claim to be exact, 
but close enough to give a good general idea of the ex- 
tent of the town, the length of the north line is about 
nine miles, and that of the south line five miles. From 
the north-east corner, where the Essex line touches the 
lake, to the south-west corner at the mining hamlet of 
"Seventy-five," as the crow flies, it is about thirteen and 
one-half miles. If the same crow should fiy from the 
mouth of Black river to the Moriah line, he would go 
a little less than nine miles, and if he flew from the 
mouth of the brook in the village, straight west from 
the lake shore until he came to the town line at 
Black river, he would go four and one-half miles. Fly- 
ing from Nichols pond, straight east to Bluff Point, he 
would go five and a half miles. Dismissing the crow 
from our service, if a boy in a rowboat took a fancy 
to follow every curve of the shore line, he might row 
eighteen miles in Westport waters. Before Moriah 
was ceded a part of our territory in 1849, he might have 
rowed twentv. 



12 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

POPULATION. 

Westport caDDot be said to be densely populated. 
The census of 1900 reports the total population as one 
thousand seven hundred twenty-seven (1,727). This, 
for a township containing about thirty-five thousand 
acres, gives plenty of breathing space. But the main 
body of the population is gathered within an area of 
not more than half the total acreage, — perhaps it would 
not be incorrect to say within one-third. The village 
of Westport is reckoned to contain five hundred sixty- 
three souls, and Wadhams Mills one hundred sixty. 
At the last presidential election, held in 1900, there 
were one hundred and six votes cast in the first, or 
northern district, and two hundred and sixty-nine in 
the second or southern district, making a total of three 
hundred and seventy-five. 

Westport is not as thickly settled as it was fifty years 
ago, as will be seen by the following figures : 

On Barr's map of Essex county, published in 1829, 
the population is given as one thousand three hundred 
twenty-two (1,322). The town at that time included the 
southern portion, containing the Cheevei- ore-bed, set 
off to Moriah in 1849. In 1845 the population had in- 
creased to two thousand ninety-four (2094). Before 
the next census the area of the township had been di- 
minished by the loss of the territory mentioned, but 
nevertheless we reached the highwater mark of two 
thousand three huodred fifty-two (2352). Westport 
has never come up to that level since. It will be re- 
membered that Jackson opened his furnace in 1848, 



IlfSTORY OF WESTPORT Is 

and those were the gala days of the iron business. For 
the next twenty-five years the population varied as 
follows : 

1850—2352. 

1855—2041. 

1860—1981. 

1865—1687. 

1870—1577. 

1875—1981. 

Doubtless in 1875 the census taker enrolled all the 
men employed in working upon the raih'oad, which 
would explain the increase. 

The Supervisors' Report of 1900 gives the exact num- 
ber of acres in town as thirty-four thousand five hun- 
dred eighty-five (34,585). The total valuation of real 
estate is set down as 1728,815. Of course it will be 
understood that this is the assessed valuation, for pur- 
poses of taxation. The actual value, or selling price of 
a farm or a house is often double the assessment. Per- 
sonal property is given as $83,200, and this should be 
multiplied at least by three to express actual condi- 
tions. The census of 1900 shows a marked increase in 
the value of property over that of 1890. 

PRODUCTIONS. 

Our productions are mainly agricultural, — hay, oats, 
potatoes and apples, with milk, butter and wool. No 
iron has been mined or manufactured for many years. 
Lumber is sawed and shipped in moderate quantities, 
chieflv from the mills at Wadhams. 



14 HTSTORY OF WESTPORT 

There are still some of the quaint home industries of 
colonial times carried on among us to a small extent. 
Some homespun woolen yarn is knit into heavy socks 
and mittens, which are brought into the stores at Wad- 
hams every fall. Warm and durable they are, too, 
every pair worth three that are factory woven. These 
are most often made by the older women, who were 
taught the homely art of knitting in their childhood. 
The girls nowadays make "Battenburgh" lace "throws," 
to hang on the corners of picture frames. 

The weaving of rag carpets on a hand looui is still a 
thriving industry, though the number of weavers is few. 
The massive looms are very quaint and interesting, and 
the skill of the weaver is still that which was required 
before the days of steam invention. Perhaps there are 
a half dozen of these primitive looms in town, none of 
them built within sixty years, and some of them very 
much older than that. I know of but three which are 
now fitted for work. 

Of the extinct industries, the most unusual was the 
making of clay pipes. At Coil's Bay, near the place of 
the early Ra3^mond settlement, lived an Englishman by 
the name of James Smith, always distinguished by the 
title of Pipe- maker Smith. He and his sons for years 
made the old-fashioned clay pipes, in a shop at one end 
of the farm house. The pipe clay came from New- 
Jersey, and the pipes were burned in a kiln attached to 
the house. The burning was an operation requiring 
much skill and patience. This was the only place 
between Albany and Montreal where clay pipes were 



insToirv OF WFsrroirr i5 

made. The business was kept up until some time in 
the eighties. 

All the brick buildings in town were made from brick 
of our own manufacture, but none of them have been 
built within thirty years. To-da}^ no one builds of any- 
thing but wood, and the bricks for foundations and 
chimneys come in on the railroad. There were, at the 
time of our greatest prosperity, a number of brick-yards 
in town, and all agree that the material was of the best. 

One unusual industry is that of gathering ginseng 
root in the woods, to be sold at a high price and sent 
to China. There is a little spruce gum gathered to be 
sold every year. More important than either of these, 
though sQiall, is the trade in the skins of furbearing- 
animals. Every spring several thousand pounds of 
maple sugar are made. 

OKOLOGY. 

For the geology of Westport I am entirely indebted 
to a bulletin issued in 1895 by the New York State 
Museum, called "The Geology of Moriah and Westport 
Townships," by James Furman Kemp, in which it is 
said that 

"The geolog}' of the eastern Adirondacks presents 
many problems of interest. The townships along Lake 
Champlain contain within their borders the contacts 
of the labradorite rocks — (gabbros, norites and anor- 
thosites) with the quartzose gneisses and crystalline 
limestones; and the later-formed unconformabilities 
of all these with the Potsdam sandstone of the Upper 



Id HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Cambrian. The crystalline rocks of the Archean invite 
study of both igneous and metamorphosed forms, while 
along the old shore line are the Cambro-Silurian sedi- 
ments, unchanged, not much disturbed and rich in 
fossils." 

This will not be especially illuminating to the aver- 
age un-geologic reader, but the language of this science 
has "unconformabilities" which render it difficult to 
translate. On page 332 we find this : 

"Tlie southern part of Westport is mainly gneiss, but 
the northern is all anorthosite and gabbro. The anor- 
thosites have an extended development in Split Kock 
Mountain, and also appear in the southeast. The gab- 
bro is especially important in the central portion. The 
sedimentary rocks mark the southeastern lake shore. 
The Potsdam, Calciferous, Chazy and Trenton are all 
well shown." 

In the matter of trap dikes it seeuis that we are 
somewhat deficient, though several "are exposed along 
the lake shore a mile or two north of Westport, — and 
others appear in the old iron mines on the west side of 
the Split Rock ri ige. Porphyries, tho' known in the 
next township north, have not been met." 

As it is quite possible that some reader may be in- 
terested in the detailed description of the "Iron Mines 
of Westport," I will copy it in full : 

"There are at present no producing mines in AVest- 
port, and such as have been opened have been idle for 
many years. Except perhaps the second bed at Nich- 
ols Pond, all that we visited were clearly in the gabbro 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT J 7 

series, and gave thus every reason to infer that they are 
titaniferous, and such analyses as have been available 
have carried out this impression. 

"The Nichols Pond Mines. — These are situated high 
up on a mountainous ridge above Lake Champlain, and 
just north of Nichols Pond. There are two beds ; the 
southerly one is in gneissic gabbro, and is about 9' 
thick. It strikes nearly east and west, and dips south 
about 80 ^ . The ore is magnetite mixed with horn- 
blende and is lean. The second bed lies more to the 
north, and shows the following section, with a strike 
and dip like the last. 1. Hanging wall gueiss. 2. Ore 
12'-15', shot ore consisting of magnetite and quartz. 3. 
Lean ore not worth separating 20', but of same general 
character as 2. 4. Compact feldspathic rock, 15'. 5. 
Lean shot ore aud quartz same character as 2, not 
worked. 6. Foot wall coarse gneiss. There was a 
large separator in operation some twenty-five years ago 
at Nichols Pond, and a tramway ballasted with tailings 
runs down to the highway to the eistward. These 
luines are in lots 166 and 168 of the Iron Ore Tract 
and on Campbell Hill. 

"The Ledge Hill Mines. — This name may not be the 
most common or correct one, but it is the one given us 
iu Westport. The mines are near the summit of a hil), 
two miles west of Westport, aud are several hundred 
feet above Lake Champlain. They are in gabbro of a 
gneissic habit, but at times quite massive at points not 
far from the ore. There are two ore bodies. The ore 
is richest in the middle and becomes lean towards the 



18 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

walls, with abundant hornblende and garnets. In the 
lowest opening there are 4'-6' of richest ore. Fifty feet 
higher up there is another opening on the same ore. 
The strike is east of north and the dip is high t(^ the 
west. A little to the east is a second ore bod}^, opened 
by a cut about 6' feet wide at the bottom. The walls 
are gabbro. The mines are in lot 153 of the Iron Ore 
Tract. 

"The Split Rock Mines. — These are opened in Split 
Hock mountain, about one hundred feet above Lake 
Champlain, and sliow very considerable excavations, 
which are practically dry, as the situation for mining 
is very convenient. Tlie ore is 10' thick, strikes N. 70- 
80 ^ E. and dips 50 ° south. Gabbro forms the walls 
right up to the ore on both sides. It is the metamor- 
phosed variety with the copious reaction runs of gar- 
nets. The writer was told that there is another opening 
to the south. There is a separator on a level with the 
lake, and above the mines, in a terrace in a break in 
the hills, are the old boarding houses. From this ter- 
race there is a most superb view of the lake and the 
Green Mountains. The mine is just across from Fort 
Cassin." 

And the summing up of the whole matter is this : 
"There seems little if any prospect of profitable mines 
in Westport in the future. Those ores that are rea- 
sonably near the lake are certainly titaniferous, and 
cannot be used under the present calculation of blast 
furnace slags and mixtures. The non-titaniferous ores 



JUSTORV OF WKSTPOjrr lu 

which may be in the western limits of the town are ex- 
tremely inaccessible, if inrleecl in any quantity." 

One of the Mineville ore beds, called the Cook Shaft 
Miue, is crossed by the town line, so that its northern 
opening, called Thompson's shaft, lies io Westport, 
but this mine is no longer worked. Its ore is valuable, 
but not so cheaply obtained as that from the other 
mines of Moriah. West of the school-house at "Seveuty- 
five," (called more commonly "Fletcherville" in Mo- 
riah,) is a body of ore known as the "Humbug Mine," 
a title given it when the ore was proved to be titanifer- 
ous, and therefore valueless. My information in regard 
to the mines at "Seventy-five" has been obtained from 
Mr. S. B. McKee, so long Engineer of Witherbee, Sher- 
man k Co., at Mineville. 

HAMI.ETS. 

Our terms of local geography contain constant al- 
lusion t6 five or six hamlets which seem to a stranger 
to be little more than a name. They are referred to b}- 
the titles given when they were scenes of far greater 
activity than can often be the case now. There is 
Brainard's Forge, in the extreme north west corner, 
on the Black river, just where Westport, Elizabeth- 
town and Lewis join, and where the teacher in the 
school keeps the names of pupils on three separate 
pages of the register, according to the town in which 
each one lives. In 1807 there was a forge here, built 
on the Elizabethtown side of the river, which is 



20 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

allndecl to iu the old town records as "Morgan's 
New Forge," but is called "Brainard's" in 1817, and 
bas kept that name for nearly a century. This was 
the earliest and one of the best known forges of the 
number built upon the Black river between the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century and the final declension 
of the iron industry in AVestport and Elizabethtown. 
Now you find there a steam saw-mill, a school-house, 
half a dozen farm-houses, and the little river slipping 
by under the bridge, still darkened by the stain of iron 
ore to the color which gave it its name from the first 
settlers. It is dwindled to less than half its volume 
since those days, in common with every other water 
course in the country. 

Then there is Meigsville, up the Black river to the 
south-west, perhaps three miles. Here is a school- 
house, and a number of houses on both sides of the 
river, six hundred feet above sea level, and deep within 
the mountains, wath the wild scenery of the great unin- 
habited Iron Ore Tract to the west and south. If you 
should follow the road further up the river, you would 
find only a desolate, almost uninhabited region for 
miles and miles. 

Few^ and faint are the memories of Meigs. His name 
was Guy, and he ow^ned the mill and the forge, and I 
know^ not what besides. He went away some thirty 
years ago, he and all his family, in a big emigrant 
wagon drawn by four horses, to a place indefinitely 
given as "out west." I find that in the historv of our 
town, the people who have moved away may almost 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 21 

always be said to have gone to one of two places. Either 
they went "out west" or ''over the lake." The first 
means an enterprising seeking of new countries, the 
second an unambitious return to the older civilization of 
New England, often expressed by the phrase, "went 
back to his wife's folks." So much of the western 
shore of Lake Champlain was settled by emigrants from 
New England that going back "over the Lake" was, in 
the earlier days, something Hke going back to the old 
country. But Guy Meigs disappeared toward the wild 
west, which means, of course, that he left Westport 
bearing due south, not turning literally to the west 
until he had made his way past the ramparts of the 
Adirondacks. I have sometimes discovered that when 
men are accounted for as having "gone west" any time 
before the last quarter century, they have, not uncom- 
monly, gone no further than Buffalo. But as for Meigs 
of Meigsville, I know no more of him than I have here 
set down. Doubtless his most enduring monument is 
the mountain hamlet still called by his name.* 

In the southwest corner, where Westport, Elizabeth- 
town and Moriah meet, is the larger settlement of 
"Seventy-five." This was named from the surveyor's 
number for the lot in the Iron Ore Tract upon which it 
was supposed to stand. In geography and in politics 
"Seventy-five" is obliged to belong to the town of West- 



* MOTE.— There has been recently published a large volume containing a g-en 
*;*Iogical record of the Meigs family in America, in which it appears that Guy 
Meigs of Meigsville is of the same family as General Meigs of the Civil War, as 
well as many other notable people. The author of the book is Captain Henry B. 
Meigs, a brother of the late Guy Meigs. 



22 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

port, but in every thing else it is part and parcel of 
Moriah, or, to speak more exactly, of Mineville. Here 
is situated the Cook Shaft No. 2, one of the system of 
Moriah mines, which have made such fortunes for their 
owners. Here was once a great furnace, offices, stores, 
and a village of more than thirty houses, with a large 
school-house. It remained a populous place for some 
time after the mines shut down. Those who were able, 
went away as fas*^^ as they found chances to work in 
other places, leaving a sediment of those who were too 
poor to move. In 1846 we fought with our neighbors 
for the possession of the soil. In 1896 either one 
might have had it for less than the asking, for that 
winter the poormaster traveled wearily over the long, 
hilly road, once a week, with a great load of provisions 
to keep some of the people there from starving. This was 
our small share, as a town, in the problem of dealing 
Avith the mass of unemployed poor which Moriah strug- 
gled so bravely to solve in those dark years. 

Near the place where the town line crosses Mullein 
Brook is a saw-mill and school-house, and we always 
speak of the neighborhood as "Stevenson's," from the 
name of the familv who h;ive long owned the mill. This 
is also known as "Adirondack Springs," and at one 
time was called "Spencer's." The oldest name, and one 
seldom or never heard now, was "Fisher Mills," from 
the name of the first settler. 

Where the railroad crosses the highway near the 
lake shore is a place where mail is left and 
taken on for a short time during the summer, called 



HISTORY OP' WESTPiUtr 2H 

after the boarding-house near by "Oak Point." The 
next raih'oad crossing to the north is spoken of as 
*'Graeffes" or, more formally, the Westport Farms. The 
latter title indicates more properly all the land between 
the railroad and the lake, with the residence on the 
lake road, and the numerous tenement liounes and 
barns. 

In the northeast part of the town, not far from the 
Essex line, on the Boquet river, Hes "Merriam's Forge." 
A passing stranger can see no reason for the name, as 
even the ruins of the old forge, built in 1825, were swept 
away in the flood of 1897. The dam in the river is still' 
left, kept in repair by the terms of the will of the 
former owner, Mr. William P. Merriam, but the water 
runs away unemployed and useless. There is something 
pathetic in this one surviving token of the care and en- 
ergy once lavished on the place. The forge, with its 
three fires, and the labor of the colony of operatives 
for whom the row of bouses were built, made its 
founder and owner a rich man. Now his house by the 
riverside stands empty most of the year, and the work- 
men's houses are filled with an agricultural or a wan- 
dering population. 

None of the forges on the F31ack and Boquet were 
situated near iron mines. All the ore was brought in 
wagons from the Moriah mines, or, in latter times, from 
the ore beds at Nichols Pond or Ledge Hill. If you 
drive over the roads now you may form some idea of 
the profits of a business which paid for such long and 
laborious transportation. 



24 IIIHTORY OF WESTFORT 

The name "Jacksonville" indicates to ns the most im- 
portant iron enterprise which Westport ever knew, m 
the amount of money involved and tlie actual results. 
The place was upon a beautiful point, across the bay 
to the northeast of the village, uow occupied by the 
houses of Mrs. Hall and of Mr. Robertson Marshall. 
The name is taken from that of Francis H. Jackson, ot 
BostoD.who built the Sisco furnace here in 1848, at a cost. 
itis said, of one hundred thousand dollars. The massive 
foundations of this furnace still remain, and much ot 
the stone of its walls has been used in Mr. Marshall s 
house. The house occupied by Mrs. Hall was built 
for Mr. Jackson's residence. The book-keeper's house 
is still in use, but most of the workmen's houses have 
disappeared, or are used in other ways. The whart is 
still left, but the heavy barges, laden with coal and 
iron, are now replaced by the graceful lines of some 
pleasure craft. 

Very recently have been observed in the local news of 
the county papers substitutions for the old luunes ot 
our hamlets. MeigsviUe is West Westport, Steven- 
son's is South Westport, and Brainard's Forge is West 
Wadhams. Perhaps this is an indication that the an- 
cient names are passing away, and that untility is be- 
coming more to us than memory. 

SCHOOL DISTRICTS. 
There are eleven school districts in the town. The 
most southern is at "Stevenson's," near the saw mill on 
Mullein brook. Here you can turn off the ' 'back road, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 25 

and take the "Bald Peak road" to Mineville, skirting 
the base of the mountain, and with Mullein brook for 
company half the way. Then there is the school house 
at "Graeffes," alias the Westport Farms. This is the 
district that was spoken of for many years as "Boot's" 
because Mr. Samuel Root lived here. The school- 
house stands on a hill overlooking Coil's bay, with a 
beautiful view of the lake and of the Vermont mount- 
ains. North of this, on the lake road, stands w^hat 
must be the oldest school building in town,™ the "stone 
school-house." It is built of the limestone of the 
neighborhood, with windows let in directly under the 
eaves, so that no one can look out of them without 
standing up, and little folks not at all unless they climb 
upon the desks. Consequently, you will usually find the 
<loor open in summer, and can look in sociably as you 
pass. 

At the point where the cross road and the back road 
and the raih'oad meet is the Howard school house. 
Here come the children "off the mountain,^' two and 
three miles sometimes. This school house, as well as 
the one at Stevenson's, sees a regular Sunday gather- 
mg for religious services. Here the meeting of adults 
on that day is larger than that of the children during 
the week. 

There is a large school house at Seventy -five, which 
had until very recently a full attendance, but is now 
dosed. At Meigsville the school house stands on the 
Elizabethtown side of the river, and this is also the 
-case at Brainard's Forge. You will find one at Hois- 



26- HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

ington's, accommodating cluldren from four roads, and 
about half way to ElizabethtoNYU on the turnpike is the 
one most likely to be noticed by a stranger. This is„ 
because it stands half hidden by an immense boulder, 
almost as high and half as large as the building. Tins 
used to be called "the red school-house." but since it 
was rebuilt with a different eye for color we make sure 
of being understood by saying "the OL>e by the big rock. 

At Wadham's Mills is a large brick school-house, one 
of the oldest in town, often repaired, which the people 
still make use of, patiently waiting some turn ot ev-ents 
whiohshall bring them a new one. On the road to Whal- 
lonsburgh, just over the hill which rises south of the riv- 
er is the Royce district, now ottener referred to as the 
Sherman district. On the lake road to Whallonsburgh. 
where the road divides, the east branch running direct 
to Essex village, stands the "Angler Hill school-house. 
The Anglers are long since gone, but here, I am happy 
to say, the old name still holds in spite ot all new com- 
ers Angler Hill itself you will find a half mile farther 
north. Standing at Its top, you look off over the level 
land of the river bottom In Essex, and the earth drops 
away from before you suddenly in a terrace. Ih.s is 
"Angler Hill," once a synonym for stony steepness, but 
much modified by years of patient grading. 

The school house In the village was built m 18SJ, 
after such a prolonged and heated "school-house war 
as Is Often seen when there are two parties of opposing 
opinions, only one ot which can possibly have its way. 
It is hard to beUeve that any spot could have been bet- 



Jl I STORY OF WESTPOirr 27 

ter than the one chosen, on the flat near the shore of 
the ba}', where the building shows so finel}^ in the first 
view of the village from the lake. 

All these school-houses are to a certain extent social 
centres, particularly in. the remote districts. Here are 
not onh' the school exhibitions but the Sunday-schools 
and the mid-week prayer meeting often held, as well as 
the annual "school-meetings" for the election of trus- 
tees and officers of the district. 

CKMETERIKS. 

The cemeteries of a town are always interesting places 
to any one who cares for its histor}'. There you find a 
directory of the past, with blanks in place of the names 
of those who died among other scenes, or who left no 
one behind them who cared to raise a stone to their mem- 
ory. Here dates are copious and authentic, and it 
seems a rehef to walk these silent aisles after much ex- 
perience with the uncertainty and contradiction of local 
legendary history. Xot tliat long exploration of the le- 
gends will not add to the interest of loitering in these 
old graveyards. One of the most delightful of summer 
afternoons can be spent in wandering thro' the village 
cemetery in company with the Oldest Inhabitant, and 
and listening to story after story suggested by the 
names on the tombstone. 

The largest cemetery in town is the one in Westpoii 
village, on the north bank of the brook, on Pleasant St. 
It must be almost as old as the viUage itself, but the 



'JS IFISTORr OF WESTPORT 

earliest date of burial here cut iu stoue is iu the jeaF 
1808. 

Here are buried many of the rneii conspicuous iu 
our history. Here lies "old Squire Hatch," as we 
commonly call him, "Hon. Charles Hatch," it reads, 
here,— with a monumeut which was altogether the 
most imposing one in the cemetery whenit was erected, 
though somewhat overshadowed since. 

There is scarcely an old name which is met within our 
annals that cannot be found here, and of course one 
cannot attempt to name theai all. Mt)st of the earlier 
graves are found in the eastern end. Here is the 
shaft put up for Barnabas Myrick, who seems to 
have been the great man of the village after the days 
of Squire Hatch. Near it is the grave of General 
Daniel Wright, wdio commanded all the militia forces 
of Essex and Clinton counties in the War of 1812, with 
the title of Brigadier-General. His tombstone relates 
none wf his deeds or distinctions, and his wife, whose 
name was Patience, might be fancied to have need ( f that 
virtue in putting up with the fact that she has no st()ne 
of her own, but is given a few lower lines on that of 
her husband. Perhaps it is going too far to imagine 
any one criticising one's own epitaph, or the manner in 
which it is embldzoned to the world, but it has an odd 
effect of making her name seem appropriate. It was a 
very common custom in those days. 

Across the graveled path are the Holcombs. Doctor 
Diadorus Holcomb was a very early settler, a,nd the 
lirst one who practiced the healing art He acted as ij. 



iiisTOiiV OF WEsrroirr 2u 

surgeon at the Battle of Plattsbnrgli. Not far away 
are the graves of the Cuttings, conspicuous in the vil- 
lage life a little later. These are some of. the oldest 
names, most of them on quaint, old-fashioned slabs, 
^^ometimes with the conventional weeping willow cut at 
the top. There are many handsome monuments of re- 
cent date, like those with the names of Page, Sargent 
and NewelL 

One of the most interesting graves in the cemetery i^ 
that of Col. Francis L. Lee, Colonel of the 44th Massa- 
chusetts Volunteers. . A shaft of stone in its native 
beauty, uncut and unpolished, taken from his own es- 
tate at Stony Sides, marks the spot. A tablet of slate 
is let in on one side, with name and date. A massive 
boulder from North Shore is laid at the grave of Mr. 
William Guy Hunter, in which are deeply cut his name 
iind that of his wife. 

There is the grave of Joseph Call, the giant, of whose 
feats of strength so man}- tales are told. Ebenezer 
Durfee has written on his tombstone that he was a 
Pievolutionary soldier, the only stone so marke . 
^yould that more old soldiers had left it cut in stone, 
so that we might know and honor them all. 

A noticeable thing is the number of stones on which 
it is recorded that the silent sleeper beneath met his 
death by drowning. In former times such an interest- 
ing fact as this could not fail to be engraved upon the 
tombstone, with the appropriate moral reflection thrown 
in. Of late we are grown more reserved, or more in- 
diil'erent., and in the newer part of the cemetery the 



.^ nisrowr of- wKsn-oin- 

stones grow larger and the inscriptions smaller, and 
there is no longer- any literatureof thedeaa, but nre.ety 
. catalogue. Tor my part, I like the old way best. 1 
used to be an art to write an epitaph, an.l to engrave it 
pvoperlv, and then it was something worth wh.le for 
one to" read, walking in the cemetery of a hnnday 

""ThiHrthe Protestant cemetery. That of the Roman 
Catholic chnrch lies not far west of it, behind the pret, 
tv church, and is full of interest. There rs another 
/raveyard in the village, bat it is only the oh people 
Tvho can tell yoa .u,oh about it, as it has been lo..g uu- 
used. It is spoken of as the '"South buryrng ground. 
It lies just northeast of the old Arsenal aua back of 
Mrs. Gregory's house, on land now owned by the ^^ est- 
port Inn. It is a neglected corner, overgrown wUh 
Iriars aud burdocks in the late summer. He.e he 
Tillinghast Cole, and son>e ,.f the Havenses aud 
Reynoldsesand a number of graves unmarked by st.mes. 
These unmarked graves are always found rn the old, 
est cemeteries, often outnumbering those whose na.nes 
liave b -eu preserved. 

At Wadhams Falls there is a very pretty cen,e ery, 
on the high river bank, across the road fro.n the M_ K 
church. Here are the old names of this seetiou,-t elt 
and Bramau and Whitney, Hardy and Dunster and 
Browu aud Sherman, Woodrutl' an,l Payne and many 
,„ore The earliest cemetery at Wadha.ns was on the 
flat lower down the river, but was soon aban.hmed, an.l 
„o stones were left to mark the spot. The Wadha«,. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 31 

family were buried in a private ground back of Com. 
A. Y. Wadhams' residence, but were removed and 
placed in the large cemetery within a few years. 

All our cemeteries are in spots of natural beauty. 
At Merriam's Forge is a small private ground, where 
all the Merriams lie buried. It is not far from the 
former residence of William P. Merriam, across the 
road, and on much higher ground, with a fine view of 
the river. 

On the road to Elizabethtowu, near the Black river, 
is what the old people call "the Newcomb burying 
ground." This has received the remains of all the old 
families of this region. 

As old as any of them all must be the graveyard at 
Hoisington's. The earliest date is 1805, at the grave 
of Datus, son of Enos and Anna Loveland. What a 
dear, romantic bit it is, this little square fenced in 
among the mountains ! Here 3^ou get no water view at 
all, only the dark mountains with their folded valleys, 
pressing close around. This lies -on the highest ground 
of any of our resting places for the dead, as here it is 
six hundred feet above sea level, with mountains tower- 
ing far above it. There are very few family names 
represented, mainly Lovelands, Nichols and Sloughters. 
On the lake road to Port Henry is a small private 
cemetery on the land of Hiukley Coll, where all the 
names are Coll by birth or marriage. 

Without doabt the most ancient burial place in 
town is on the wooded point which runs out north of 
the mouth of Raymond brook, close to the island. 



.V2 HISTORY or WESTPORT 

Very near this spot was the first settlement of white 
leu ou our soil. The oldest date of bur.al o be read 
is that of Levi Alexander 1816 bu we know th^t 
„,auy graves here must be older than '\^\'^^''''^'^ 
Lt Wf adozenstonesuow standiug in the 1> -u^W 
„re but all around are signs of a large cemeteiy. Many 
:U.e graves were marked only with that most pa thet.c 
thing iu old graveyards,-ro„gh, uncut, unshaped aud 
llrUed st'oues/seleoted from hillside or door yard or 
any where they could be found. They were set up 
"LTuiy at the head and the foot of the grave, many 
caieiuiiy between them, 

of them markiDg only a baby s ieu„i 
and for the lifetime of oce generation we may be su.e 
hat these graves were not nameless as they now m 
be to us. These rough stones are found in all on. old 
ce^ teries. and indicate a time when the stoue ciUte 
Ld not yet reached the place, and cut marble must bo 
Wght 'long distances. Indeed, many ^J the .to- 
with the oldest dates were set up years atte. the body 
beneath was laid to rest. 

We have a right to claim the cemetery just ov . t^^e 
lineinMoriah,asit belonged to Westport un Ul af tei 
t^first generation of settlers must have beeu buned. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 33 

ROADS. 

To attempt a description of all the roads of a town- 
ship would be very tedious. Only a study of the map 
can give an adequate idea of them. To a person com- 
ing from one of the southern counties of New York, 
where highways and railroads are constantly crossing 
in a network, and there is never one house built out of 
sight of another, our town looks like a mere wilderness, 
threaded here and there with a slender, solitary, trail, 
often without human habitation to pass for long dis- 
tances. To the same person, coming direct from any 
of the "back towns" of the county, namely, North Hud- 
son, or Keene, or North Elba, where an immense town- 
ship sometimes is traversed by a single road, with one 
or two branches, Westport seems thickly settled, and 
very comfortably supplied with roads. The highways, 
of course, as in every place, indicate perfectly the needs 
of the population by their direction and extent, and 
their resources and enterprise by their condition. 

Taking the village of Westport as a center, the main 
roads running from it are those to Whallonsburgh, Wad- 
hams Mills, Elizabethtown and Port Henry. Going to 
the first place, you may take the river road or the lake 
road. The river road goes north until it comes to the 
bank of the Boquet, then follows it closely, after cross- 
ing it near the town line, into the township of Essex. 
The lake road takes yoa northeast, over many hills, 
with beautiful views of lake and mountains. At the 
top of Angier Hill you look dowri upoa the valley of 



S4 HISTORY OF WESTPORl 

the Boquet. At ^^-bat is called "tlie forest gate," after 
vou pass through the Wonderful gateway in the rocks, 
;{ such interest to geologists, a private road leads 
some two miles to Hunter's Bay, Partridge Harboraud 

Book Harbor. , ., n. 

The road to \Vadhams Mills, runs to the north- 
west, crossing the railroad and the river. Here are 
the beautiful falls and the busy mills. If you are very 
luckv YOU mav find the river full of logs, and a gang 
of piciuresque" "loggers" with red shirts, high rubber 
boots and pike poles, trying to break a log jam The nver 
road will take you to Mount Discovery and to Lewis. 
Thence, if you are so minded, you go northward to the 
place which we call the "Pokeo' Moonshine. A road 
to the west goes to Brainard's Forge, and there are 
,„any cross roads, in this region of rolling farms, con- 
necting the main roads. ^ 

If you wish to go to the county seat you must go to the 
station and then along the only turnpike in the county. 
This is the stage route for the mountains, and altogeth- 
er the most constantly travelled road in town. You 
,.ust stop at the toll-gate and pay toll, which you will 
not begrudge when you see that your money goes to 
keep the road both smooth and wide. Beautiful 
.mountain views you will find, and when you come to 
the Black river and cross the bridge, then you have left 
Westport and are in Elizabethtown. 

To go to Port Henry you may take either the back 
road" or the lake road. The first follows the railroad 
,st of the way. and runs not far from the high bank 



mosl 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT Ho 

which iudicates the last slope of the mountains of the 
Jron Ore Tract, in their nearest approach to the shore 
of the lake. The lake road, (called a part of the way 
the "middle road,") runs parallel with the back road, 
and joins it just beyond the town line, so that you are 
obliged, in any case, if it is your will to go to Port 
Henry, to cross Mullein Brook and climb "Bigelow 
hill" beyond. This brook was undoubtedly named 
after a person, but at the present day the hill just south 
of the bridge is so covered with the withered, woolly 
green of the unesteemed mullein that one feels that the 
reason of the name might not be far to seek. About 
two miles from Port Henry you will pass through 
^'the Cheever," meaning the ruins of the mining village 
which sprang up so suddenly in the prosperity of the 
great Cheever ore bed, and fell into ruins so deliber- 
ately when fortune frowned upon the God of Iron. 
You are in what was once Westport territory' until 
within two miles of Port Henry, although it has be- 
longed to Moriali for fifty years. 

From Holt's brook to the Raymond brook we call 
this the '^middle" or the '^state road," because there is 
a "lake road" farther to the east. And a pleasant road 
it is, looking off over the tops of "the Cedars" to the lake 
and the Vermont shore. There is a lane leading down 
to the AVorman place at Young's bay, and another, 
much travelled, to the light-house and the ferry at Bar- 
ber's point. A favorite short drive from the village is 
to take this road around to the island, and then come 
back by the middle road, or by the cross roud Ayhicli 



:,,; IIIHTOKY OF WESTPORT 

cuts tbrongh the Westport Farms, aurt back past the 

aolf liuks. . , 

" Other roads less travelled have often quite as much 
interest. By turning off the turnpike near the station 
vou can go up the Ledge Hill road. After you have 
crossed the brook you will never wonder at the mean- 
in. of the name. When you come to the twin fish 
P„"k1s at Hoisington's you may take your choice of go- 
ing on to MeigsviUe, and perhaps away off across the 
Black river to "the Kingdom," (peopled now only by 
.hosts of the old Days of Iron,) or you may turn and 
"o south between the mountains until you come to the 
spring which supplies the village of Westport with wa- 
te. If vou choose this road, the first little bridge you 
cross is called, in local talk, "tea-kettle bridge. The 
name is the most valuable part of thelegend, as the neigh- 
bors can ..nly tell you that once, when they mended the 
bridge thev found a new tea-kettle carefully hidden un- 
der it, whose owner they never discovered. 

On this road stood, not many years ago, a charcoal 
kiln the last, perhaps, of the large number which might 
be found all over the town fifty years ago. when there was 
so much more wood to burn. It was not far from 
"the old tram road," which leads to Nichols Pond, two 
miles west of the highway. This pond is a favorite re- 
sort of hunters and campers, and you can hardly pass 
this wav in the hunting season without seeing a hunter 
with <.un and basket, making for the pond. It lies four- 
teen hundred feet above sea-level, and there is a camp 



HISTOHY OF WE^TPORT 37 

an an island. Another trail to the pond leads in 
from the south. 

When you come to the turn at the old Stacy place, 
idias the Greeley place, now owned by Mr. Lee, you 
may go back to the village, or turn up the hill and take 
the mountain road to *'Seveuty-five." This road reach- 
es the highest altitude of any road in town. After you 
have passed the "John Smith place," where you get 
such a charming glimpse of the lake through the trees, 
looking down over Bessboro, and have climbed the 
hills along the musical tumbling brook, and passed the 
solitary farm-house of Levi Mojre, you come to the 
summit of the road, fifteen hundred feet above tide. 
After this there is a descent until you reach the de- 
serted village of "Seventy-five." 

Surely a more desolate place cannot be imagined 
than this ruined mining settlement, lying high up in the 
mountains, where the soil is thin and poor, and where 
the trees have been cut off for miles around, burned to 
feed the great furnace which is now but a heap of 
shapeless ruin. Time has veiled tl^e naked hillsides 
with the thick, slender "second-growth" timber, but the 
village houses still stand unshielded upon the bare 
slopes. Most of the houses were well-built, large and 
comfortable, and it will take a long time for the chim- 
neys to fall and the roof-trees to sink. All the popula- 
tion here ha<l to be fed by the farming country of the 
Champlain littoral, and farmers as far away as Lewis 
apd Essex drew hay and other farm produce over the 



:^S HIS TORY OF WE SJ" PORT 

raooDtains to Seventy-five, receiving high prices and a 
share in the general prosperity. 

This is the most direct road to the villages of Mine- 
ville and ^loriab. If you choose you may return to 
Westport by keeping on around Bartlett pond, (in Mo- 
riah,) which lies so still and dark, surrounded by the 
still, dark mountains, and taking the Bald Peak road, 
through mountain valleys, following Mullein brook to 
the school house at Stevenson's, then the "back road" 
to North-west Bay. 

The shortest way from the village to the Mountain 
Spriug is to go up the hill past the golf links, cross the 
railroad and take the turn at Rush Howard's. This 
brings you to a bit of new road not shown on the map, 
because it was made after the map was engraved, which 
exchanges a stony hill for an easy grade through the 
meadows for a mile, on the land of the Mountain 
Spring Company. 

As for the smoothness of these roads — well, you will 
not find them planed and sand-papered. It is evident 
that in township the elevation of whose surface varies 
from the level of the lake to eighteen hundred feet 
above it, the roads cannot be expected to maiotain a 
dreary monotony. I am reminded of a story. Driving 
over a mountain road from Hoisington's to Greeley's, 
with a friend returned from South Dakota, we came to 
'"tea-kettle bridge," with the little clear, brown stream 
pouring and gurgling under it. "Oh, stop the horse a 
moment," said she, "and let me hear the water run. " 
The muddv slouirhs of Dakot.i do not look nor sound 



HISTORY OF WEST PORT 39 

like that!" And then she told me the story of au Essex 
county boy who took his degree at a medical college and 
went west to practice in a prairie state. For years he 
drove over level roads, with a level horizon around him. 
One day he w^as called to go a long distance to a place 
he had never seen. On his way he saw, in a field by 
the side of the road, the first rock that had met his eyes 
since he entered the state. He left the road, drove un- 
til he came to the rock, and then deliberately guided 
the horse so that two wheels of his buggy went directly 
over it. He made a turn, came back, and sent the 
other wheels over the rock, enjoying the bounce and 
jolt. Then he made his way back to the main road, 
went home and told his wife. "Oh, it felt good," said 
he, "It felt like Essex county once more!" And no 
one will deny that that is the way Essex county feels, 
when you are driving, and Westport is no exception. 

Nevertheless, oar roads are better than those of many 
other towns, and especially in the fall, when our clay 
packs into a hard smooth surface, only made smoother 
by every passing wheel. It is the spring mud, after 
heavy rains and thaws that make our roads a terror 
and a penance. Our system of working roads is ex- 
ceedingly deficient, resulting in a marked line of divis- 
ion, in some cases, between a one road-district with a 
business-like "path-master" and high taxes, and another 
district with a path-master ignorant or unwilling, or 
with taxes too low to do half the work. 

One characteristic feature of our road-sides is the 
stump fence. This is made of pine roots from the 



40 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

forest primeval, left after the trees were cut down, and 
dug out of the earth to leave the laud clear for the 
plantiug of crops. We have an invention called a 
"stump-machine," made for pulling the stumps out of 
the ground. Then they are set up in rows along the 
borders of our fields, with the wide-spreading roots 
joining in an abattis which makes an excellent fence. 
We have very little of the zig-zag rail fence left, and 
stone walls are not so common as in the southern part 
of the state, but a gray, mossy, old stump fence, whose 
gnarled and twisted outlines take fantastic shapes, fes- 
tooned with the woodbine and the wild grape, is pic- 
turesque indeed. 

There is a folding road map of Westport, with mile 
circles, easily obtainable, and also a larger wall map. 
The map of the United States Geological Survey, on 
the scale of nearly one mile to one inch, shows every 
road perfectly, to the least turning, and also indicates 
with contour lines the elevation of every point. Be- 
cause of the perfection of these maps, and their acces- 
sibility, no effort has been made to provide this book 
with a large and complete map. The small one in the 
front of the book will give a quite sufficient idea of the 
town and its vicinity. 



HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 41 

Westport's oue supreme claim to consideration is in 
the beauty of her natural features. Mountains anc] 
lake together give this bit of earth a charm which is 
never unfelt or denied. The natives, born upon the 
soil, always the last to analyze the influence of nature 
upon themselves, are by no means the last to feel it. 
How we pity the people condemned to live in a flat 
country, and what a keen edge has the regret of the 
exile who leaves us to live upon the prairies of the 
West! But w^e would not have it all mountains. "Keene 
Yalley?" we say. "We could not live shut in like that, 
ouly able to look up, and not out. We never take ^ 
free breath until we get back u-here we can look of 
upon the lake." That is what gives us the sense of 
freedom and distajuce, and I think we love it best of all, 

RIVERS AND BROOKS. 
Our largest river is the Boquei This beautiful 
mountain stream has its ultimate springs high among 
the peaks of Keeoe and North Hudson, and follows a 
northeasterly course through the "Pleasant Valley" of 
Elizabethtown, and into the townships of Lewis and 
Essex. Then it bends suddenh' to the south, and makes 
.a loop of Ave or six miles to eater Westport, Here it 
-comes within three miles of the lake., and perhaps in 
some pre-historie age it flowed into Northwest Bay, bat 
aow the Split Rock range pushes its foothills to the 
south and bars the way. The New York and Canada 



42 IllSTifRY OF WESTruKT 

);iiiroad, ill pfissiiit^ over this <]ivicle between the 
Schroou rauge aud the valle\' of the Boqnet, makes the 
lieaviest orrade between Albany and MoutreaL This is. 
the reabou why a h)aded freight train is so often "stalled'^ 
nearA^iall's crossing. After leaving Westport, the river 
Hows through Essex and Willsboro into Lake Cham- 
plain. Some of its most remote springs mast be nearly 
three thousand feet above sea level. At Elizabethtown, 
it is bat a little less than six hundred feet high, and at 
its mouth it is of course of the same level as Lake 
Champlain,one hundreil and one feet above tide. Such 
a descent as this proves it to be a clear, swift running 
river, with many falls. The most considerable of these is 
at Wadhams Mills, and gave that place its early name, 
still often used, of 'The Falls." 

AVithin our borders, the Boquet flows for the greater 
part through a line farming country, cleared and cnlti- 
vated, except where it is crowded by the rocky base of 
Coon mountain. It is crossed by the railroad, which 
follows closely along its northern bank for several miles. 

The river is used extensively for logging. Logs are 
('Mi by gangs of lumbermen in the forests of Elizabeth- 
town and Lewis, and floated down in time of high water 
to the mills at Wadhams or Wliallonsbnrgh or Wills- 
boro. x\ll this logging business is very interesting and 
picturesque, and one may pick up many a quaint bit of 
experience out of it. An old farmer who had watched 
the river many years told me one day that he could 
tell at a glance whether the river was rising or falling. 
If the logs are all in the middle of the river it is falling. 



HISTORY OF WKSrrORT 4:; 

If they are floatiDg along upon each side next the banks 
the river is rising. When the water is rising it is high- 
est in the middle, and the logs take the lower level next 
tlie bank. When it is falling it is the lowest in mid- 
stream, and there the logs eoUeet. 

There are two dams in the river within Westport, one 
at Wadharas and one at Merriam's Forge. The high- 
way crosses it but twice, once at each of the two places 
jnst mentioned. 

The name of the river is eommonlv a stunTblino- 
block to strangers, in the matter of its pronuDciatiou. 
A true native never calls it boo-kay, but always bo- 
kwet. As it is evidently a French name, the stranger 
is likely to set this pronuciation down as a result of 
crass ignorance. On the contrary, it is a most inter- 
esting linguistic proof of the real origin of the name. 
That sound of final "t" has survived for one liundred 
and sevent}' years, and, like most survivals, has an ex- 
cuse for being. 

The Boquet river was named by the French before 
1731, as is conclusively shown by maps of that dat^. 
This point has been thoroughly investigated by Mr. 
Henry Harmon Noble, who has had every opportunity 
to examine the documents bearing upon the subject in 
the State Historian's office^ In a letter written to the 
author he says : 

^^I find in New York Colonial MSS., Volume XCYIII. 
page 24, 'Carte du Lac Champlain, dujnns le fort Cham- 
bly jusquau fort 8t Frederic. Levee par le Sieiir 
Anger, arpenteur du Hoy en 1732, fait a Quebec le 10 



44 II 1ST OR V OF WESTPORT 

Octobre 1748, si.i>;ne de Lerj.' That is to sa}^ a map 
of Lake Champlaiii from Fort Chambly to Fort 8t. 
Frederic, surveyed by Mr. Anger, Surveyor to the Kin^ 
in 1732, made at Quebec (3ctober 10th, 1748, On this 
)iiap the river is put down as 'R. Boquette,* showing 
that it was called by that name as early as 1732. 

"Also in Documents Relating to the Colonial History 
of the State of New York, vohimn 9, opposite page 
1022, is a map, a copy of which was procured in Paris 
in 1812 by John Romeyn Brodhead. On this map^ 
date 1731, 'Carte du lac Champlain avec les Rivieres 
dupuis le fort de Chambly dans la Nouvelle France^ 
jusques a Orangeville de le Nouvelle Angleterre, dresse 
sur divers memoirs,' — it is called R. Banquette. The 'a' 
is quite plain." 

In a very interesting; article upon the naming of the 
Ausable river, in the Essex County Republican, in 0<^- 
tober of 1894, Mr. Frederick H. Comstock, a well-known 
autho/rity on the history and nomenclature of this re- 
gion, speaks of both the maps mentioned by Mr. Noble, 
and says : 

"The French being established so near the lake soon 
familiarized themselves with it, and gave names to 
])rominent natural features of its shores— Roche fendre 
(Split Rock), Carillon (Ticonderoga), Isle La Motte. 
Sorel, Cliazy, St. Armant, Boquet, Valcour, Grand Isle, 
etc., many of which remain even to this day." And he 
calls special attention to the fact that the rivers were 
named from their mouths. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 45 

So it is plain that the French had given our river its 
name before they huilt the first fortifications upon the 
hike, at Crown Point, in 1731. As for the meaniug of 
the name, it seems probable that it was derived from 
the word "baquet," that is "a trough," from the forma- 
tion of the river banks near its mouth. The Freuch 
named the An Sable river, that is, the Sandy river, 
from the long point of saod at its mouth, and remarked 
that it was so choked with sand at its entrance into the 
lake that it was impossible for boats to enter it at all 
except in time of high water. After passing this river 
mouth, their eyes were quick to notice that the next 
one to which they came, on their southward way, was 
of a very different character, flowing deep and full into 
the lake through steep banks. There was no obstruc- 
tion to the entrance of boats of large size, and their 
•])assage was clear almost to the foot of the falls. It 
will be remembered that Burgoyne encamped here in 
1777 because the river afforded a shelter for his boats, 
and in 1812 it was entered by British gun-boats. Sc* 
the French voyageurs described it as the "river which 
is like a trough at its mouth," —Baquet, or Banquette, 
afterward written Boquette or Boquet. 

It is sometimes asserted that our river was named 
alter Colonel Henry Bouquet, a British officer during 
the French and Indian War. This is not possible, 
since Colonel Bouquet never saw America until 1756, 
twenty-five years after the river was named. Turning 
to the second volume of "Montcalm and Wolfe," by 
Francis Parkmau, we may read : 



4<; HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

"The Kt)yH.l American regiment was a new corps 
raised, in the colonies, largely from among the Germans 
of Pennsylvania. Its officers were from Europe ; and 
conspicuous among them was Lieutenant-Colonel Henry 
Bouquet, who commanded one of the four battalions 
of which the regiment was composed." 

The gallant Colonel, afterward made a General by a 
grateful sovereign, distinguislied himself in his opera- 
tions against the Indians of Pennsylvania and Ohio, 
hut at no period was he in service upon Lake Cham- 
plain. His own letters and journals, and the records 
<^f his campaigns, prove this. There were parts of the 
regiment of Koyal Americans with x^bercrombie in his 
attempt upon Ticonderoga, and with Wolfe at Quebec, 
])ut not Bouquet's battalion in either case. 

The name of Bouquet was a famous one in the colon- 
ies at the time of the "old French war" and immedi- 
ately after it. How famous it was we can hardly real- 
ize since the Rev(^lution has lighted so many greater 
lights. It would have been in no way strange that any 
unnamed river should be named after him, and I have 
no doubt that at this time a misconception of the facts 
arose. The great majority of the English had never 
seen the original French maps, and were quite ignorant 
of the early history of the lake. What more natural 
than for them to suppose that the name "Baquet" or 
"Boquette" referred to their own admired General? In 
this way it may be admitted that the river was, in a 
certain sense, rebaptized after General Henry Bouquet, 



HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 47 

and so the newer spelling and pronunciation might be 
allowed. But 3'our true native will always sound that 
final "t" and thus bear witness, often unconscioush', of 
that Lo^'alty to the Oldest which makes so large a part 
of the historical sense. 

The river next largest in size is the Black, a tributary 
of the Boquet. It defines about five miles of our west- 
ern border, the boundary line between Elizabethtown 
and Westport following its eastern bank. It rises in 
the southeastern corner of the township of Elizabeth- 
town, in Long Pond, which lies nearly sixteen hundred 
feet above tide. "Long Pond" is the name given on all 
the old maps, but I see that the latest Government sur- 
vey has changed it to "the Four Ponds." Doubtless 
that which was one continuous pond in the early days 
of thick forests and deep, full streams, has now dwin- 
dled to four small ponds connected by slender brooks. 
From Long Pond runs Brandy Brook, falling over five 
hundred feet in less than two miles, into Black Pond, 
which is commonly given its modern title of Lincoln 
Pond. Black Pond was named, like the Black river, 
from the color of its water, derived from the iron in the 
soil. From Black Pond the river runs north-east, and 
all along its course you may find its banks dotted with 
the ruins of mills and forges. 

At "the Kingdom" lies the most memorable ruin, ri- 
valing the mournful interest of "Seventy-five." I have 
always wished some one would tell me why a soulless 
corporation ever chose the name of "the Kingdom Iron 
Ore Company." Was it with a bounding hope for the 



48 HISTORY OF WFSTPORT 

fiitiire like that expressed by the southern negroes in 
their song of "Kingdom Come?" At any rate, the name 
is all that is left to remark upon now, and as even that 
does not belong to Westport, we most hurry on down 
the river. 

It is six hundred feet above sea level at Meigsville, 
and four hundred feet above it at its junction with the 
Boquet in Lewis. It has a descent from Black Pond 
to the Boquet of six hundred and fifty feet. It will he 
seen that with this fall, and with the volume of water 
here in early days, the stream was of great value to the 
first settlers, and as long as there was a demand for the 
products of mills and forges. To-day there is but one 
mill running along all its course, — the one at Brainard's 
Forge, — 'but^ alas, forthe ancient pride of fche river, the 
saw is driven by steam [ A hujidred years ago the river 
ran with full banks, deep and stilh ^H the year, but 
now in summer it dwindles to a thin stream, spread 
over a pebbly bed. The water is not now noticeably 
dark,, except as it runs over stones which show the 
coloring of iron ore. I suppose that when the first 
settlers saw it, it had something of the inky blackness 
of the AuSable river in the Chasm, flashing into white 
at the falls and rapids. 

Four bridges cross the Black river from one town- 
ship to the other. 

The small streams entirely within the township are 
numerous. There are at least five flowing into the Bo- 
quet, and as many into the Black river. In the center 
of th 3 town^ flowing into tht Northwest Bay, and crossed 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 4f) 

near its mouth b}' the bridge in the vihage, is Hoising- 
ton's brook, named after an early settler. In strict 
justice it should be called the Loveland brook, as the 
Lovelands preceded the Hoisiugtons on the farm near 
its source, but strict justice does not always prevail in 
the names of places. In some cases our local names 
go back to the earhest comers, and generation after 
generation makes no effort to change them, thus pre- 
serving a record of early history, and preventing all 
farther confusion. There is something pleasant in the 
thought of thus honoring the first settlers, who 
saw the country when it was new, cut the first trees, 
plowed the first furrow, and did so uuich to make it 
habitable for us who were to come after them. Not that 
I am murmuring that Hoisiugton brook should be so 
called. It is a good old name, and that the two fish 
ponds date back only to the day of the Hoisingtons is 
sufficient reason for naming the whole brook after 
them. By the roadside, near the bridge at Hois- 
iugton's, the traveller can see two pretty little ponds, 
one emptying into the other, and the outlet falling into 
the brook. The sources of the brook are much higher 
iu the mountains. This stream was called Mill Brook 
by the first settlers at Northwest Bay. 

Hariimoiici I3i*ook. 

The Hoisington brook is joined, not far back of the 
village, by another stream coming from the south-west, 
called the Hammond brook. This stream has for one 
of its sources the Mountain Spring, which supplies the 



50 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

village with water. Of late 3'oars it is sometimes spok- 
eu of as the Pooler brook, but tlie old name is much 
oftener used, and is far more appropriate. Nathan 
HammoDd settled here not long after 1800, and his son 
Gideon, also a dweller b}^ the brook, was a prominent 
man in our history, being supervisor of the town for 
years, and going to Albany to represent the county in 
the Assembly. They are all gone, long since, but the 
name is still used. 

On the map of the United States Geological Survey, 
though it is quite correct so far as the natural 
aspect of the country is concerned, our Hoisington 
brook is miscalled the "Hammond brook," while the 
true Hammond brook is given no name at all. 

llaym^oiid Bi-ooki. 

Often a stream is known by dift'erent names at dif- 
ferent points along its course. Up in the mountains, 
where Joseph Stacy, one of the first settlers, owned 
large tracts of land, you will hear of "the Stacy brook." 
Near its mouth, where it falls into Coil's bay, 3'ou will 
hear it called "Coil's brook." But there is still anoth- 
er name. Nothing in all my study of our town history 
has delighted me more than to find this brook referred 
to, in the common speech of the neighborhood, as "the 
Eaymond brook." This is the oldest survival of no- 
menclature that I have discovered. It dates back to 
that first of all first settlers, Edward Eaymond, who 
came here in 1770, and formed a small settlement at 
the mouth of the brook. James W. Coll came to this 



in STORY OF WESU'Oitr .jl 

vicinity in 1808, and I heard his grandson, without sug- 
gestion or premeditation, refer to this as "the Raymond 
brook," thus showing that this was the accepted name 
in the family. Sureh' we cannot do better than to keep 
this up. The land in this vicinity may change hands 
as many times in the next quarter century as it has in 
the last, but it is to be hoped that the litde river may 
never lose the name of Raymond. The name of the 
original Coll is perhaps sufficiently honoied by giving 
his name to the bay. 

The Raymond brook, then, is our longest stream, 
with its highest source probably fifteen hundred feet 
above tide, in the mountains near the Elizabethtown 
line. On my map it is made to rise in Nichols pond, 
but I am told that this is a mistake, and that the out- 
let of the pond is toward the west. It is a beautiiul, 
clear mountain stream, with many a little fall and cas- 
cade, and still pools full of trout. It makes a most 
musical companion on the road to Seventy-five, and it 
is a considerable stream where it flows under the high- 
way near William Floyd's. When it has come in sight 
of the lake, and flows under the bridge near the Graeffe 
residence, it leaps over a steep ledge of rocks in one 
foaming sheet. xVbove the fall is the pool where half 
the town, in ancient times, used to come to wash their 
sheep. 

Mullein Bi'ook. 

On Sauthier's map, made 1779, of the lake there are 
two uf our streams put down, — ^Hoisingtou and Muilein 



52 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

brooks. OdIy one is giveo a naQie, and that the latter, 
.vhich is called "Iron or Beaver Cr." On the map of 
the Iron Ore Tract, made 1810, it is called "Bever 
Creek," so that it is plain that this was its early name, 
unchanged for the time of one generation. ("Bever" is 
not a misspelling of "Beaver," but the same word ni 
the Dutch language. Albany, you remember, was 
called by the Dutch "Beverwyck.") 

In the old town records, in 1815, it is spoken of as 
"Mollins brook," and afterward as "Mullens" and 
-MuUin" brook, as though a man by that name hved 
near it, which was perhaps the case. It is well-known 
that the heroine of Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles 
Standish" was named Priscilla Mallen. Possibly a de- 
scendant of the family of arch and lovely wife of John 
Alden settled in early days upon this rushing mountain 
torrent. It is an odd coincidence that there is a hill- 
side, just where the highway crosses this brook, which 
I have alwavs seen covered with the stiff, untidy, 
povertv-stricken leaves and stalks of the common mul- 
lein, and I had beUeved from childhood that this hill- 
side gave its name to the stream. Later years brouhgt 
the reflection that it was likely to have been named 
before the forest was cut from that hill, and now 1 
cherish an original theory of my own. Near the end 
of the French and Indian war, one of the men of Kobert 
Rogers, the Banger, was sent on a dangerous and dar- 
ing errand up this side of the lake, from Canada to Lake 
George. His name was Lieutenant Patrick McMullen, 
and i like to believe that he had some romantic ad- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT r^fi 

venture near this stream which caused it to be called 
after his name. 

It rises high in the Iron Ore Tract, probably thir* 
teen hundred feet above sea level, and flows down the 
side of Bald Peak with a swift, tumbling current. In 
the early days it had strength to run a mill at ^'SteveU' 
son's," but now it can be used only a little while in the 
spring floods. From the mill it drops into a deep, 
dark ravine, at the steep foot of Bald Peak. Between 
this ravine and the road lies the little cemetery, with 
its wide outlook over the lake and Vermont to the 
south, and the gloomy mountain rising high behind it, 
■ a most picturesque and lonely spot. The brook is 
crossed by the highway and the railroad near its mouth. 
From the highway bridge you can catch the prettiest 
glimpse of the water of the lake, framed in by the arch 
of the culvert under the railroad. The little valley is 
very deep, and the ''fill" of the railroad very high and 
dangerous. Engineers know that the embankment here 
is treacherous, and never to be trusted after a heavy 
rain. 

I^eavei* Bx'ook. 

South of Raymond brook is a stream comparatively 
short, and with many tributaries, called on the Govern^ 
ment map of LS96 "Beaver Brook." It rises in the 
hills west of the "back road," and flows into Presbrey's 
bay at the stone bridge, on the lake road. One branch 
of it comes down the hillside back of Oren Howard's in 
a pretty fall, and runs under the great fill in the rail- 
road there. Another branch supplied the water for 



d4 HISTORY OF WESTFOET 

tLe reservoir where the locomotives watered on the 
switch, before the larf^e reservoir was built at the sta- 
tion and supplied by the Mountain Spring. There is a 
ford at the mouth of this brook, and when the bridge 
was up for repairs, a number of years ago, people who 
had not been forewarned to go by the back road would 
sometimes drive through the shallow waters of the bay 
to reach the road on the other side again. After an 
east wind has been blowing, you will find the water 
under the stone bridge running up stream, from the 
lake into the brook. 

This brook is not shown in the large atlas of 187G, 
which is a strange oversight for so accurate a work. 
On the Government map of 1896 the ba}' into which it 
flows is called "Mullen Bay," which is manifestly 
wrong, and will, I have been assured, be corrected in 
the next edition. 

There is another Beaver Brook in the northern part 
of the township. It rises on the western slope of the 
Split Rock range, and flows north through the Mather 
and Whallon farms into the Boquet river, in Essex. 
The name is a common one, and indicates that the first 
settlers found the beavers and their dams in great num- 
ber on these streams. And now I suppose there is not 
one beaver left for this generation to kill. 

Many little streams flow into the lake all along the 
shore, some of them dry a part of the year. "Holt's 
brook" was formerl}^ "Rogers's brook" and is crossed by 
two bridges near the stone house at the fork of the 
roads. It runs through the cedar wDods into a sandv 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



>') 



bay, and at its mouth was an encampment of Indians 
when Hezekiah Barber came here in 1785. A Httle 
stream sets in to the head of Sisco Bay, runninpj throuc^h 
a deep wooded ravine after it crosses the road on Mrs, 
Lee's laud. Another, near Hunter's Bay, makes its 
slender way down the side of the mountain and runs 
into the lake across a flat, bare rock, smoothed by the 
action of water and ice for ages. 

When old people have talked to me of the streams 
of our town as they Unew them in their youth, they 
have always striven to impress me with the fact that 
all this countiy was far better watered then than it is 
now. Some short streams have entirely disappeared. 
Mrs. Harriet Sheldon, daughter of Hezekiah Barber, 
has told me of a brook which in her girlhood's days 
ran into the head of Young's bay, of volume sulHcient 
to run a spinning wheel which had been made to work 
by water power. It is known in the family now as "the 
spinning wheel place." And Mrs. AVilliam Eichards, 
daughter of Ira Henderson, has told me how high the 
water used to come up behind her father's house, cov- 
ering all the marsh at the mouth of the brook, so that 
liis boats came to the foot of his garden to load and un- 
load their freight Old boatmen will tell you the same. 

MOUNTAINS, 

Of mountains surely we have good store, but of single 
peaks with a distinctive history hardly one. Through 
the centre of the township lies a valley of irregular 



56 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

shape, r«Bni..g back to the northwest, from the lake to 
the Black and Boquet rivers. This valley is widest on 
the lake front, and extends from Head lands on the 
north to the southern extremity of Bessboro. it 
contains all the tillable land of the township, ot 
which the most valuable are those of the southern 
lake front and the rich bottom lands ot the Boquet 
The few farms between Coon mountain and the bp it 
Bock range, in the valley of the Boquet. should be 
added to this area. All the rost of the town is rough, 
mountainous country, covered with timber, with here 
and therea higb, sandy farm, cleared when the country 
was new, whose light soil is easily cultivated but pow- 
erless to make rich returns. We may be said to have 
two mountain systems, although when the Adirondacks 
are viewed as a whole, both belong to the Schroon range, 
which extends from Schroon Lake to Split Rock. The 
n,ountains to the south-west of our fruitful and inhab- 
ited valley we call the Iron Ore T.act. Those to the 
northeast we call the Snlit Eock range. ^ 

The vallev mentioned lends a beautiful variety to the 
sky line as "seen from the lake, as it dopes upward trom 
the head of the bay, where the village lies back to the 
hio-hlands ot Elizabethtown, dividing the dark mass o 
bins which form the Iron Ore Tract fro,u the ragged 
spurs of the Split Rock range, pushing boldly mto the 
lake. Through the gap are seen, sketched in the clear 
fine blue of mountain distances, the outlines of Mount 
Hurricane and the Jay peaks. Against a sunset sky. 



HISTORY OF WESTPOBT 5r 

Hucl reflected in the still water of the bay, it is a vsif:;lit 
to be thankful for. 

The highest mountain in town has no name, of its 
own. It lies iu the south-west corner of the town, and 
is nineteen hundred feet hi^h. It is between Stacy and 
Mullein brooks, and its summit may be pointed out as 
the one next north of that of Bald Peak. Between it and 
Bald Peak lies the high valley through which passes the 
*'Bald Peak road." 

The Schroou range attains its highest elevation in 
Bald Peak, which rises two thousand and sixty-five feet 
above tide. It is now in Moriah, though it belonged 
to ancient Westport. Seen from the lake road, near, 
the cemetery, it seems a noble height, rugged and grand. 
It is easily ascended from Mineville, on its western 
>slope. Its summit was an important point in the meas- 
urement of distances in the Adirondack Survey of Yer- 
planck Colvin, as you may read in his report. Upon 
the map of the Geological Survey of 1892, (edition of 
1898) it is named "Bald Knob" instead of Bald Peak. 
This is, I think, to distinguish it from the "Bald Peak" 
of Elizabethtown, which is nearly a thousand feet 
higher. The change of name is a very reasonable 
one, and my mind was fain to further it, but I have 
found local usage so persistent that I have subsided from 
the reformer to the mere unreasoning chronicler. 

The people who live nearest neighbors to the mountr 
aius have names for all the heights, like the Harper 
nj(uintain, (named after a familv who lived at its foot 
in early times,) the Nichols Pond mountains, etc. I 



o8 HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 

believe the height back of the old Bromley place, where 
William Smith now lives, is called the Bromley mount- 
ain. It is over a thousand feet high, and even from the 
foot of it, where the house stands, a remarkable view is 
obtained, looking over the Split Bock range down the 
lake. At the top it must be maguiticeut. The mount- 
ain back of Nichols pond, where the iron mines are, is 
Campbell mountain, named, from an early owner of 
the ore beds. 

The Split Rock range forms one continuous mass 
from Headlands to Split Bock, penetrated by but one 
carriage road, in the whole distance the one going in to 
Bock Harbor. There area number of well worn tia'ls 
across the mountains, following the valleys, and the 
heights are by no means inaccessible. The highest 
point is one thousand and thirty-tive feet, and is called 
Grand Yiew. It rises almost sheer from the waters 
of the lake. This is the mountain which frowns upon 
you as you emerge form the mouth of Otter Creek, dark 
with its iron rocks and its evergreen trees, and with tlie 
buildings of the old Iron Ore Bed works clinging to a 
narrow shelf half way up the side. 

A spur of the Split Bock range to the westward, its 
base washed by the Boquet Biver, is Coon mountain. 
Its name is descriptive even now, as it is not at all un- 
common for a raccoon to be killed within its shadow. 
Its height is one thousand and fifteen feet. Standing 
on the ramparts of Crown Point fort, you may see its 
scfdloped outlines against the sky, and it is a well- 
known landmark up and down the lake. 



HISTORY OF WEST FORT 59 

Local names are Higgiuson's and Lee's mountains, 
and Merlin's Peak, a fanciful name for a hill near the 
road, on the west of the Split Eock range. 



PONDS. 

Nicliolj-^ Pond. 

Our ponds cannot be said to be numerous when one 
considers that we are reckoned as belonging to the 
Adirondack countr}-. All that we have lie within the 
Iron Ore Tract. The largest is Nichols pond, lying 
well back in the mountains, not far from the town line. 
("Back," in our parlance, may alwa^'S be understood to 
man "toward the west," or "away from the lake.") It 
lies fourteen hundred feet above sea level, and is sur- 
rounded by high forest-clad mountains. It is less 
than a mile in length, and has two islands, upon 
one of which is a permanent camp. No highway runs 
near it, but it is reached by two trails, one from the 
east, the other from the Fouth, each about two miles 
long. If you go in from the east, you will leave the 
highway near Ed. McMahon's, not far from the place 
where the charcoal kiln stood for so many years, and 
follow up the track of the old tram road, which will 
lead you direct to the pond. This tram road was built 
to carry ore from the mines to the highway, but 
was never finished. You will find the ruins 
of the separator which separated the ore after it was 
raised from the mine, near the northern end of the pond 



60 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

The original John Nichols, after whom the pond was 
named, lived where Ed. McMahon now does. He came 
in sometime daring the first decade of the nineteenth 
century, and now lies buried, with others of the same 
name and race, in the Hoisington cemetery. Within 
the past few years I have heard some people who were 
not acquainted with the history of this region call the 
pond "Nicholas pond," an error caused by a misunder- 
standing of the name. The earliest name given it was 
"Spring Pond," as is shown on the map of the Iron Ore 
Tract, made in 1810. This name is very appropriate, 
as there is no doubt that the pond is fed mainly by 
springs in the bottom. There are but a few small in- 
lets, quite insufficiect to maintain such a body of water. 
The outlet according to the latest Government survev, 
is through Cold Brook, flowing from the southern end 
of the pond, westward to the Black river. On the Piatt 
Kogers map of 1785 the Stacy brook is made to rise in 
two ponds not far apar*", and of nearly the same size, one 
of which is no doubt intended for our Nichols pond. 
That part of the map was not based on actual survey, 
and is manifestly inexact. On the map of the Iron 
Ore Tract it is impossible to find the outlet, as the pa- 
per was folded across the pond, and has worn entirely 
away in the creases. A gentleman who camped for 
several summers at the pond has assured me that the 
Government survey is right, and the older maps wrong. 
The trail to the pond from the south goes in from the 
road to Seventy-five, a little way east of Levi Moore's. 



HISTORY OF WKSrrORT 61 

This way it is possible to drive in with a loaclprl team, 
Both these trails you will find well worn, as they are 
used a great deal all through the season, camping par- 
ties sometiuies staying late in the fall. The pond is a 
favorite resort for convalescents or for those threatened 
with lung troubles, on account of its elevation, and 
some cures have been thought to date from a sojourn 
here. The famous Willey House, in Keene, so well- 
known as a refuse for victims of hay fever, has an ele- 
vation of only seventeen hundred and sixty feet, and 
many popular places in the xldirondacks have no great- 
er elevation than Nichols Pond. 

AVomen seldom visit the pond, be<?ause of the rough 
walking through the woods, but parties are sometimes 
made up for their especial convenience. 

For an invalid with any predisposition to heart 
trouble, fourteen hundred feet is a much safer elevation 
than eighteen hundred or two thou>sand, 

Noi'th Poiid. 

The pond next in size is North pond. This lies in 
the south ^vestern corner of the township, and its name 
indicates that its first discoverer came in from the south. 
It is the most northern of three ponds which feed Bart- 
lett brook, in Moriah. Its outlet flows south through 
Seventy-five into Bartlett pond, which lies just over the 
line in Moriah. Mr. Walter Witherbee of Port Henry 
has a summer cottage on North pond, occupied in the 
hunting season. The pond lies higher than the main 
road, and is not in sight from it 



62 JlLSrORY OF WE ST PORT 

There is a small poDcl, called by that often used and 
most blightiug name of "Mud pond," half a mile or 
more south of North pond, which is also one of the 
head waters of the Bartlett brook. It is reached by a 
trail from the highway. On the northern side of Camp- 
bell mountain is a tiny pond, hardly worth mention, 
and on the eastern side of Coon mountain is a shallow, 
marshy pond, reached by a road which turns in north 
of Mouteville's. Doubtless there are others in town 
which have never come to my notice. 

The ponds at Hoisington's are artificial, and were 
made by Marcus Hoisington, I have been told, by dam- 
ming natural springs. They lie by the side of the road, 
at the turn near the old Hoisington place, and for many 
years it was a pretty sight to look down upon them as 
one passed by, but of late they are somewhat over- 
grown by underbrush. One empties into the other, and 
the outlet flows into the Hoisington brook. They were 
originally intended for the breeding of fish. 

In one respect the Hammond (sometimes called the 
Pooler) brook is the most remarkable of all our 
streams, and the one of most importance to the village 
of Westport, in that it rises in the Mountain Spring. 
Most of the brooks have innumerable tiuy sources high 
on the sides of the mountains, little trickles out of 
pockets of wet moss, dripping down the cliffs to join 
other tiny streams until a brook is foruied, but here a 
large spring, fully a rod across and three or four feet 
deep, bursts out at the foot of a hill, and flows away a 
full stream. The elevation is less than sis humlred 



I/fSTORV OF WESTPORT 6'.? 

feet, aiul there must be reservoir? of supply somewliere 
ill the valleys of the mountaiDS which rise so dark to 
westward. I once heard some of the mountain dwel- 
lers, whose fathers and grandfathers roamed these hill- 
sides all their lives, knowing little of any other part of 
the world, gravely discussing the question whether this 
spring might not be an outlet to Nichols pond. A 
river flowing two miles and a half underground, with a 
fall of eight hundred feet, makes a picture delightful to 
one's imagination, with its suggestion of Coleridge's 
''Kubla Khan," 

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran. 
Through caverns measureless to man, 
Down to a sunless sea." 

X\i(\ I heard too, at the same time, legends of a "Lost 
Brook," which might be followed for a long way by 
some lone fisherman, who would at last come to a deep 
pool beneath overhanging boulders, and there the brook 
would disappear entirely, and never could be traced 
"another rod. I have cherished these tales for their hint 
of a folk-lore among our prosaic people. 

This mountain spring was early a precious posses- 
sion,' well-known to the first settlers, and no doubt 
tc» the Indians before them. I think it was Joseph 
Stacy who cleared the forests from the field near the 
spring, and he gained but a barren pasture thereby. 
But the little glen around the spi'ing, and through 
which the brook flows away down the hills, is still 
shaded with trees. The water is very clear and soft, 
and sup}:)lies all the village through pipes. The place 



64 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

is not so wild aud pretty since the pavilion has been 
built over the spring by the Avater company, but the 
iiow of water in the brook is not perceptibly dimin- 
ished by the large quantity drawn away daily, especi- 
ally in the summer. The water is carried to the railway 
station, where it tills the great stone reservoir, to Stony 
Sides and to Jacksonville. 

In the southeastern corner of the town, about a half 
mile from the lake and not far from the raib'oad, lie the 
Adirondack Springs, four in number. I believe the 
analysis shows them to be very similar to the famous 
springs of Saratoga, and I am sure they have much the 
same forbidding taste. They have had great local 
celebrity since the first settlement, especially in the 
cure of skin diseases. Twenty years or more ago Mr. 
George Spencer bought the property, built spring 
houses over the springs, hung up a framed analysis of 
their waters, and invited fame and prosperity to the 
spot, but neither responded in anything but a moderate 
degree, and the mantle of Saratoga has not yet fallen 
upon us. 

Almost every farm has one or two small springs 
for domestic use, though in some places the tell-tale 
windmill proclaims the poverty of the water supply. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 65 

FLORA. 

Our short summer is full of luxuriant life. Though 
we call our mountains barren, because they produce so 
little with which to support human life, they are covered 
with the richest foliage everywhere except upon the 
steepest ledges and cliffs. All the country is green and 
beautiful with a wealth of vegetable life. 

Our most common trees, are the maple, elm, birch 
and oak. There is the soft maple, which has every 
twig as red as coral in the spring, and the rock maple, 
or sugar maple, which furnishes a staple industry in the 
season of sugar making. The elm is not so common 
nor so large as in the Connecticut valley, but its grace- 
ful shape is seen in every landscape. One of our dis- 
tinctive trees is the white birch, slender, with delicate 
foliage, apparently always young. The finest oaks that 
I know are those at the Hunter place, on North Shore. 
They look as though they saw war-dances of 
Iroquois, and would hold those great limbs out for cen- 
turies after we are all gone. Ash and poplar are also 
common. On the highlands we find the white ash, 
good for timber, and in the swamps the worthless black 
ash. The shimmering poplar is one of our pret- 
tiest forest trees, and we have the Lombardy poplar, 
but that, of course, is a transplanted tree, brought in 
from New England, whence it came from old England, 
who had it from Italy, who had it first from Persia. 
There are only a few in town, but the fine row at Basin 
Harbor make a decorative effect very noticeable on a 



mi HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

clear day. Other transplanted trees, not native to onr 
forest, are the locust, a favorite in old-fashioned door- 
yards for the sakeof its fragrant blossoms in the spring; 
the mountain ash, brought from high mountain levels 
for the beauty of its great scarlet bunches of l>erries; 
the horse-chestnut, with its spikes of blossoms, the 
silver maple, and the "balm of Gilead." Our basswood 
is the English linden, I have been told, and its blos- 
soms are loved by the bees. 

Our nut trees are the hickory, which we always call 
the walnut, the butternut, and the beech. We have neither 
the chestnut tree nor the black walnut, although a few of 
the latter have been set out as an experiment. In this 
climate many of the shells of the black walnut will be 
found to be empty. The hazel nut is common, growing 
on wayside shiubs, and the weird witch hazt'l, with its 
wild November blossoms. Hardback, willow, alder- 
sumac, osier, — I am afraid I shall not name them all. 

Our evergreen trees are pine, spruce and Ijemlock. 
with some cedar and balsam, and an occasional tam- 
arack. The juniper spraw Is untidily over barren cleared 
fields. Wild vines are the bitter-sweet, the clenuitis or 
smoke-vine, the wild grape, the wood-bine, and the 
dreaded poison ivy. 

Every field has strawberries in June, and raspberries 
a little later along the fences, and then blackberries. 
You may find a few blueberries on the mountain 
sides, but nothing like the blueberry plains of Sarauac, 
where they are scooped of^' the bushes with tin dii)pers 






HISTORY OF WESTroUr 67 

and brought down to the lowlands in wagon-loads to 
be sold. 

Our cultivated fruit trees are the apple, pear, cherry 
aud plum. We are too far north for peaches, quinces 
or prunes, though I have known them all to be raised 
as an experiment. The apple crop of the Champlain 
valley is acknowledged to be as good as anything in the 
market, and Westport raises large quantities of apples. 

ANIMALS. 

I suppose there is not a dangerous wild animal left 
in Westport, even in the recesses of the mountains. 
But I may perhaps speak too confidently, as I remem- 
ber that within twenty years our oldest hunter, Mr. 
Hinckley Coll, brought into the village the carcass of a 
bear which he had caught in a trap somewhere in the 
hills back of his farm. I ate a piece of the steak cut 
from it myself, and very black and tough it seemed. 
Even as I write, is there notalawsuit pending, in which 
charges are made against some person, not a bear, who 
stole a bear trap from a mountain side? I believe the 
trap W'ds set a long time ago, and the person who stole 
it is dead, and the lawsuit the expression of a mountain 
feud, but it shows that we have not forgotten what 
bear traps are, at an\' rate, and so has its value as a 
picturesque incident. Panthers have been extinct 
within our limits a longer time than bears, but the old 
]jeople can still tell you stories about wolves. Mr. 
Henr}' Betts has told me of sheep caught by wolves 



68 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

when he was a young man, living on a farm on the 
western slope of the Split Rock range,^ and of bears 
who came around the out-buildings at night. 

The moose were gone more than two generations ago, 
and the beaver, so harmless and so easily killed, was 
soon exterminated by the early settlers. 

The largest wild animal which we ever see is the 
deer. Their gentle habits lead them sometimes to seek 
pasturage among sheep and cattle in outlying pastures. 
Foxes and rabbits we have, the "fretful porcupine," 
dangerous to inexperienced dogs, the loud and fre- 
quent skunk, the solemn woodchuck, the striped-back 
chipmunk, the pert red squirrel, the beautiful silver 
gray squirrel, whose tail is such a splendid plame, and, 
though rare, the flying squirrel. There are muskrats 
around the brooks, sometimes a mink or a marten. 
The farmer's boy has stories of the elusive weasel, and 
the raccoon is still occasionally killed. Swarms of wild 
bees are found and hived every season by lovers of the 
gentle craft of "hunting bee trees." 

Mosquitoes we know, especially if living near the 
edge of the woods, but they are seldom troublesome 
after June. The dreaded black-fly of the mountains I 
have never seen here. 

I think our only game bird is the partridge. We 
have all the northern singing birds, robin, bobolink, 
blue-bird, chickadee, phebe-bird, oriole and the cat- 
bird, or American mocking-bird, with its two distinct 
songs. The swallow builds under the eaves of barns, 
and the English sparrow is noisy in the village streets. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 69 

We are sure that spring has come only when we have 
heard, on the edge of the evening, the cry of the whip- 
poorwill. 

The oldest family which can trace lineal descent 
within the borders of the town is that of the rattle- 
snake. They are found in but one locality — that of 
the remoter parts of the Split Rock range. Here, they 
have dens in the rocks, and when there was a bounty 
paid by the town for each rattle, people living near by 
used to go into the mountains to their dens and kill 
them in large numbers. I believe the bounty is no 
longer paid, which seems a pity, as these unpleasant 
neighbors must be increasing. There is no record of 
any person being bitten by them within the memory of 
living man. I have tried to draw out rattlesnake stories 
from people who have lived long in the rattlesnake re- 
gion, but never heard of even a cow in the pasture wdiich 
suffered from the wound of a rattlesnake bite. I have 
been told that it was unpleasant to find one of the un- 
canny things in a cock of hay in the hay field, or to 
come upon one sleeping comfortably in your back 
kitchen, but the rattlesnake is not pugnacious, and 
would rather run than fight. The Indians tried to pro- 
pitiate them by always speaking politely of them as 
"the old bright inhabitants." 



70 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

CLIMATE. 

The climate of Westport is, like its dialect, that of 
New England. It is often described by the natives, 
(who could not be induced to exchange it for that of 
any other spot on earth,) as "nine months winter and 
three months late in the fall." Cxranting that there are 
moods and seasons when this description has a nng of 
solemn reality, it fails as a literal formula in one essen- 
tial point. It gives an impression of continuity, of 
monotonv, and never, never could the worst enemy of 
our climate call it monotonous! No, we have endless 
variety. Our winter is long and cold. A fire lighted 
to warm the house in November will not be suffered to 
go out until the next March, perhaps April. We do not 
expect much snow until after Christmas, though in ex- 
ceptional vears we have had a heavy fall for Thanks- 
giving which has stayed upon the ground until the next 
sprina. If you winter in Westport, pray for snow. 
Anvthing but an "open winter." A foot of hard packed 
snow, good sleighing, no drifts, a clear air, and life may 
be not only tolerable but merry. Even heavy snows, 
with high winds and deep drifts, have an interest and 
eiijoyment, and set one to quoting lines from "Snow- 
bound" with much relish. Often there are marvelous 
displays of the aurora borealis, on clear cold nights. 

The lake freezes over at any time between the first 
of January and the middle of Febraary. About once m 
every generation there comes one of those exceptional 
winters when the lake does not freeze over at all. If 
it freezes late, we are likely to have no good crossing 



HISTdRY OF WESTrdRT 71 

•)ii the ice from Westport to Basin Barbor, a distance 
of f<:>m- miles. The crossing; from Arnold's bay to 
Barber's point is the one most nsed. The lake is nar- 
r(nver from Rock Harbor to Basiii Harbor, but this is 
entirely ont of the ordinary line of travel. When the 
ice is discovered to be firm enough to bear up a horse, 
some one, usually a man living near the shore, whose 
family, perhaps, has performed the Same public service 
for generations, like the Barbers of Barber's point, will 
go on the ice and ''bush out a road" from one shore to 
the other, choosing the best places to cross the cracks, 
turning out for air holes, etc. Tliis road is outlined by 
hushes fixed in holes in the ice, and will be used by all 
travelers until the ice becomes weak and treacherous 
in the spring. 

The ice breaks up, as a rule, between the last of 
March and the first of May. Sometimes it melts slowly 
and gradually under a constantly rising temperature, 
but more often it goes out with tempestuous winds, 
which toss and grind it against the shore, sometimes 
[)iling it many feet high. The breaking up of the ice 
is always eagerly longed for, and occasions much re- 
mark and discussion. The relief from the tension of 
the "long and dreary winter" is always very noticeable. 

-Charles Dudley Warner described our spring when 
he described that of New England, — that is, he de- 
scribed one spring, knowing fall well thatno one spring 
time is ever like another. Sometimes it is long and 
tedious, exaggerating Coleridge's line. 



72 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

"Spring comes slowly up this way. 

Sometimes we have a howlingblizzard one week, and 

the next,— 

"Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer—" 
and we have not bad any spring at all. 

1 have gathered pussy willows by the side of a dusty 
,oad early in March, and cm the other hand, I have 
seen my tomato plants seared by a frost the first nigh 
in June. These two events represent the extremes of 
my own experience, and mny be taken to demonstrate 
the fact that upon our calendar spring is a movable 
j.g„„t But -"Thanks be !" as Mr. Dooley says, it al- 
ways is spring when it comes, and it always brings 



summer. 



No higher praise of our summers can be said or sung 
than that over and over again, year after year, they 
force us to forgive our chmate for the winters Our 
summers and autumns are the loveliest in the world or at 
least thev seem so to us who love the "north countree. 

I have" no statistics of the temperature, or the rain- 
fall, or the velocity of the wind, nor do I know that any 
one ever took the trouble to observe these things scien- 
tifically in Westport. I know that the thermometer 
sometimes touches ninety degrees above in the sum- 
mer, and twenty below in the winter, but these are ex- 
tremes not repeated in every season. 

Along the lake shore the temperature is equalized to 
a certain degree by the proximity of a large body of 
water, so that sudden changes are not so much teit as 



inSTOJiY OF WESTJ'ORK 73 

iu the mouutains. Frost comes earlier in tlie autumn 
Hud later in the spring upon the highlands than along 
the lake, and of course Nichols pond and the river 
freeze much earlier than Lake Cham plain. 



I^IALECT. 

Our dialect you will find reproduced in the Kew 
England fiction of Miss Wilkins, Miss Jewett and Mr. 
Hovvells. You will also find it in "David Harum." 
But its most perfect copy, drawn wdth the keenest sense 
of its shades and fancies, you will find in the inimitable 
sketches of Rowland E. Robinson. He is dead now, 
alas! and he will never take us again to hear the talk 
in "Uncle 'Lisha's Shop," nor let us go hunting with 
8am Lovel. How^ well he knew the speech of the 
country folk, and w^ith what love and enjoyment he set 
it down ! He lived only a few miles away, across the 
lake in the town of Ferrisburgh, near Basin Harbor, 
and the people that he knew had the same ways, and 
the same thoughts and the same forms of expression as 
the people of Westport. Our amazement is sometimes 
expressed iu the mysterious allasion of "What in Sam 
Hill!" or "What in tunket!" We clip out of our 
speech every vowel and consonant that can possibly be 
spared. We say, "We sh'd think 't Sam Lov'l \\ 
Pel'tiah 'n' 'mongst 'em might 'a' ketched ev'ry dum 
fish 'n th' lake b' this time," precisely like Mr. Robin- 
son's characters. At the same time, most of us are 
perfectly well able to write a letter in good dictionary 



74 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

English, or to make a speech, or to carry on a conver- 
sation, and only drop into the dialect when we feel it 
quite proper to the occasion. We are conscious of our 
dialect and connoisseurs in its use, like the Scotch, and 
unlike the English, who drop their h's and final g's in 
serene belief that all the world does the same. 

But we have those among us who are not conscious of 
their dialect. I do not mean the city visitors, but the 
French Canadians who form a certain proportion of our 
population. Mr. Robinson has given us the type in his 
Antvvine, — and many and many an "Antwine" is ours ! 
His broken speech, a mixture of Canadian jxtiois and 
Yankee English, his small wiry form, the traces of his 
Indian ancestry shown in swarthy skin, high cheek 
bones, black bead-like eyes and straight black hair, his 
industry, his cleanliness and thrift, his incapacity to 
rise to wealth or office, his illimitable family, — all 
these characteristics mark the people known familiarly 
and not disrespectfully as "Canucks." They probably 
came in very early, as soon as laborers were required 
upon the farms or in the iron works, and, easily satis- 
fied with simple conditions, have been content to stay. 

These two forms of dialect seem to have modified 
each oth v but little, the native New England speech 
being altogether the prevailing language. A close ob- 
server can trace in the latter some modifications caused 
b}' the summer floods of strangers from Boston and 
New York. Thus the youth who was wont to answer 
an inquir}^ with a drawling "Wha-a-at?" and a vacuous 
stare, (a~"gawp" we call it in the dialect,} now responds 



JIISTOUY OF WKSrrORT 75 

with a "Beg pardon?" and an engaging smile. The beai' 
stories of the Ohlest Inhabitant are still couched in the 
original tongue, but the hotel porter who takes your bag 
at the station might defy yon to prove him not born in 
New York. 



76 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



FIRST PART. 

1609-1785. 

I. 

Indian Occupation. 

The first iuhabitants of Westport were the savage 
Iroquois, one of the most powerful of the native 
tribes. Their nomad life, with homes in wigwam and 
lodge, was peculiarly adapted to leaving no permanent 
trace upon the soil. The beaver whom they 
hunted has left more lasting impress of his labor 
than they. The red Indian never built a dam, and the 
bark canoe which was the crowning effort of his skill 
and industry needed no wharf at which to land. Why. 
should he bridge a stream that his enemy might cross 
more quickly than he ? But we often pick up an arrow 
head, chipped with infinite patience out of stone. On 
land that has been cultivated for a century, we plow up 
arrow heads with point and edges as sharp as when the 
Indian hunter took aim along the shaft and pulled the 
bow string to send it on its errand to foe or prey. 

If we can point to any local monument of the Indian, 
it is in two places which we call Indian burying grounds, 
from the quantity of arrow heads which have been 
found there. Perhaps we should call them battle grouudi^ 
if our knowledge was more complete. On the Boqueb 



HISTORY OF WKSrroRT 77 

river, a I'ttle below AYadliaiDS Mills, is a place always 
referred to as "the old Indian burying ground," and on 
the shore of Lake Champlain, south of the village and 
north of Holt's brook, is another. Here I am told that 
hundreds of arrow heads have been discovered. 

Another remarkable sign of Indian occupation is 
fr>und on the top of one of the mountains of the Split 
Rock range, overlooking North Shore, on the land 
bought in 1838 by Mr. William Guy Hunter. Here are 
found quantities of stone chippings, such as are left when 
Indian pipes and other utensils are made, and which 
always indicate an Indian work-shop. The place com- 
mands an extended view, and no doubt some tribe of 
the Iroquois was in the habit of encamT3ing here at in- 
tervals in its wanderings. The stone chippings a?"e of 
a peculiar kind of stone, unlike any in the vicinity, and 
geologists say that it is found only on the shores of 
Lake Superior. Students of Indian character and cus- 
toms find no difficulty in believing that the stone was 
brought here from that place, and supplied material for 
the first manufacture carried on upon our soil. 

Large, bowl-like hollows, worn into the solid rock, 
found on the hillsides of the Sjdit B )ck range, I have 
heard called "Indian Mortars," but these are no doubt 
due to glacial action. 



to' 



1609-1755. 

The first white man whose eyes rested upon the 
shores of Westport was the discoverer of the lake, the 
brave and brilliant Samuel de Champlain, a soldier in 



78 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

the service of France. He passed by on July 4, 1609 
the leader of an Indian war-party in twenty-four canoes. 
After fighting a battle at the head of the lake with the 
Iroquois, he returned, near the end of July, passing by 
again on his way to Quebec, founded only the year be- 
fore. His remark upon the eastern border of what is 
now Essex county is this : "These parts, though agree- 
able, are not inhabited by any Indians, in consequence 
of their wars." In this it was said to be different t<d 
the opposite shore, the level bottom lands of Vermont, 
where were many Iroquois villages, with cultivated 
tields. 

Another reason doubtless influenced the Indians in 
their avoidance of these shores. It was that they were 
a corn-raising people, so far as their practice of the art 
of agriculture went, and our clay soil is not adapted to 
corn. An Indian village was always set up upon sandy 
or gravelly loam, if possible. Then the deep water of 
the lake, with the wide sweep for storms upon it, was 
very dangerous for the Indian's frail canoe, and for 
common every day life he chose shallower water. 

We do not know the name of the first white man who 
set foot upon our soil, but there is little doubt that it 
was one of the band of Jesuit missionaries whofoUowed 
close after Cham plain, traversing all this region again 
and again with the tireless feet and the unquenchable 
hope of the religious fanatic. Devoted, highminded 
men were these missionaries, with an utter disregard 
of selfish motives unsurpassed in the history of the 
mind of man. They lived among the savages, making 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 79 

themselves subject uuto theui, and often faviog worse 
thau they. They were as patient as they were brave 
and no sublimity of heroism can ever rise al)ove tlie 
serenity with which they looked forward to martyrdom 
as the consummation of their work. 

There is a singular proof of the visits of these mis- 
sionaries to our shores. In the summer of 1875, Dr. 
Sewall S. Cutting, while walking along the shore of the 
lake near Hunter's Bay, on North Shore, found among 
the sand and pebbles a little ebony image of the Virgin 
and Child, such as miglit be used in the devotions of a 
devout Catholic, or shown to the wondering eyes of 
savages, hearing for the first time of the Mother and 
Child of Betlilehem. This image must have been lost 
by a missionar}^ or by some one of his dusky converts, 
perhaps in the time of Champlain, perhaps much later. 
It may have belonged to Father Jogiies himself, one of 
the most interesting and pathetic figures in all the his- 
tory of New France."^ 

Isaac Jogues was born in Orleans, France, in 1607, 
He was a Roman Catholic priest, and belonged 
to the order of Jesuits. He came to the new coi . 
tinent in 1636, passing tln\;ugh the settlement on the 
8t. Lawrence to the Indian mission on Lake Huron, to 
which he had been assigned. Here he remained six years, 
laboring with self-sacrificing fervor in his barren field, 



♦The ima?e found by Dr. Cutting^ was presented by him to the museum 
of Brown Unirersity, where it may probably be seen now. If Westport had had 
a museurp of her own, as every town should have, this interesting relic would now 
be treasured in the scenes to which it belongs. 



80 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

and in 1642 he went to Quebec to obtain supplies for 
Lis mission. Returning in a canoe which Avas one of 
the foremost in a little fleet of twelve, filled with Huron 
Indians, he was captured at the mouth of the Richelieu 
river by a party of Iroquois, and carried captive up the 
Richelieu and Lake Champlain, to the south. He might 
have escaped, but seeing his companions taken, he gave 
himself up* He was beaten with war-clubs, and his 
finger nails torn off by the teeth of the Iroquois. The 
two priests with him, Couture and Goupil, were also 
tortured. 

"On the eighth day," (Aug. 9,) says Parkman, in his 
"Jesuits in North America," "they approached th.ir 
camp, on a small island near the southern end of Lake 
Champlain. The warriors, two hundred in number, 
armed with clubs and thorny sticks, raiiged themselves 
in two lines, between which the captives were compelled 
to pass up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they 
were beaten with such fury that Jogues, who was the 
last in the line, fell powerless, drenched in blood and 
half dead. As the chief man among the French cap- 
tives, he fared the worst. In the morning they re- 
sumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to 
the semblance of a tranquil river." 

That the island mentioned was the one now included 
within the limits of the township of Westport, and 
sometimes called "No Man's Land," there is no doubt 
whatever. There are no other islands near the south- 
ern end of the lake except Rock and Mud islands, near 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 81 

the Yerniout shore, and ueither oue is large enoii<^h to 
afford a camp for two hundred Indians. 

The captives were taken by vvay of Lake George 
to the Iroquois vilhiges on the Mohawk river. For a year 
Jogues remained a miserable captive among these hu- 
man wolves, finding his only solace in an occasional 
opportunity to baptise a dying Indian baby, or a cap- 
tive perishing at the stake. 

The Dutch of Fort Orange forgetting all barriers of 
blood or religion, tried in vain to ransom him. Finally 
Arendt van Corlear, the governor so beloved and re- 
spected by the Indians, who was afterward drowned in 
Lake Cham plain, contrived to help him to escape to 
France. There the queen herself kissed his mutilated 
hands, and he was courted and praised, but the order 
of Jesuits knows how to make full use of such spirits 
as that of Isaac Jogues, and in a few months' time he was 
sent back to Canada. It is said that when this decision 
of his superiors was communicated to him, for a mo- 
ment his heart of flesh failed him, and he cried out that 
this cup might pass from him. One's heart goes out in 
passionate pity for the man thus sent back to his doom. 
In 1646 he made three journeys through Lake Cham- 
plain, and it ma\^ be that he stood again on the island 
which was the scene of his former tortures, but we do 
not know. The third time that he traversed the lake 
he returned to the Mohawk, as he well knew, for the 
last time. On the eighteenth of October, 1646, he was 
struck down in an Iroquois wigwam, and his blood 



82 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

consecrated the soil of the "Mission of the Martyrs" 
among the Mohawks. 

Parkman thus describes the personal appearance of 
Father Jogues. "His oval face and the delicate mould 
of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful and re- 
fined nature. He was constitutionally timid, with a 
sensitive conscience and great religious susceptibilities. 
He was a finished scholar, and might have gained a 
literary reputation ; but he had chosen another career, 
and one for which he seemed but ill fitted. Physically, 
however, he was well matched with his work; for, 
though his frame was slight, he was so active that none 
of the Indians could surpass him in running." 

For a hundred years after the death of Father Jogues 
we have no record of any event occurring within the 
limits of our town. Dark forests, rushing streams, 
steep clifl's or sloping shore, it was traversed by wild 
beasts and wild men, furnishing shelter and food to 
both in the same degree. If any human habitation 
was known here it was that of some Iroquois tribe, but 
it is not likely that even the family life of a savage 
went on under any tree of ours. This was the frontier, 
as the boundary line between the northern Indians and 
the Iroquois was drawn through Eock Dunder, near 
Burlington, about thirty miles to the north. This made 
of Lake Champlain nothing but a war-path, roamed 
over by painted warriors who had left wives and chil- 
dren in their villages upon the Mohawk or the lSt» 
Lawrence. 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 83 

Bat had there been eyes to see, mauy a sight worth 
seeing, many a sight to stir one's blood, to start a tear 
or a cry of rage, went past these shores. War-parties 
of French and Indians swept by, upon the winter ice, 
with snow shoes and sledges, or in fleets of bark 
canoes in summer, returning again with trophies of 
wretched prisoners and bloody scalps. Bands of Dutch 
or English, always with their horde of Indian allies, 
were sent out in retaliation for these forays, and but 
reversed the grim order. Tlius, twenty years after the 
death of Jogues, a nobleman of France, Lord de Cour- 
celles, sent from the court of the king to govern Canada, 
with that thirst for wild adventure so universal among 
the French who came to the new world, made a winter's 
march of three hundred miles into the country of the 
Mohawks, with a party of six hundred men. Twice, 
indeed, he went in the same year, once in January, 
when our bay was frozen and the ice covered with four 
feet of snow, and again in the still waters of September, 
It was he and his men whose lives w^ere saved by that 
same Corlear who planned and carried out the 
escape of Father Jogues. In all the bloody story, 
there is nothing that we might not better spare than 
the record of the nobility of Arendt van Corlear, a 
Dutchman of Schenectady. The next summer he too 
passed by, going to Canada for a friendly visit to De 
Courcelles, Perhaps he stopped to rest in Baie des 
Roches Fendu, and drank of the stream which runs 
into it. But he never saw the place again, nor did he 



S4 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

reach Canada, but was drowned "while crossing a large 
bay," which is believed to mean Willsboro bay. 

The Schuylers often looked upon our shores. In 
1690 John Schuyler, grandfather of that Philip Schuy- 
ler of the Revolution who looked upon them oftener 
still, went down the lake to Canada, camping "a mile 
beyond Cruyn Puint," as he says, sturdily making 
the name as Dutch as he was able, and then returned 
from a successful raid against the enemy. The next 
summer Major Peter Schuyler met his Indian allies at 
Crown Point, and went and returned likewise. To the 
stretch of shore which we now call the lake front of 
AYestport, one war part}' was only like another, and we 
need not give details of all. 

History begins to close in around this bit of earth in 
which our interest now centers, with the approach of 
the first home life in the Champlain valley. This was 
in the French village at Crown Point. 

The French took possession of the peninsula of 
Crown Point and fortified it in 1731. These were the 
first fortifications ever built upon the lake, and this 
act first made colonization possible. A fort and a gar- 
rison of soldiers mean as much security as any place 
between Albany and Montreal could at that time afford. 
A good stone fort, called Fort St. Frederic, (named 
after the French Secretary of War, Frederic 
Maurepas,) was built close to the water's edge, 
and thirty men were sent to keep it. Almost at the 
same time came French colonists from Canada and set- 
tled on both shores, as near the fort as possible. A 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 85 

little village lay south-west of the fort, on the shore of 
the bay, with comfortable houses and barns. In 
twenty years' time there were fourteen farms occupied 
within the protection of Fort St. Frederic. All the 
records of the time contain frequent reference to this 
settlement. Here, then, were near neighbors of West- 
port, even though Westport was not yet, nor would be 
for the space of another generation. Doubtless the 
hunters and trappers of the village hunted deer and 
moose, panther and bear, wolf and lynx, upon our ter- 
ritory, and trapped the beaver and mink and otter upon 
the Hammond and the Stacy brooks, and learned every 
turn of our points and bays by heart. 

The same year the French made a rough map of the 
lake, which was perfected the next year, and is still 
known as "the Quebec map." This was by no means 
the first map made of this region, but it was the first 
which could be called complete. 

The Iroquois were the most intellectual of all the In- 
dians known to the white men. Their mental capacity 
was quite sufficient for the making and understanding 
of a rude map, if their necessities required it. We can 
easily imagine some old and infirm chief, too feeble to 
lead the young men of his tribe to the hunting grounds 
or the battle fields of Caniadare Guarante, tracing upon 
the ground, or upon a sheet of birch bark, the outline 
of these shores. In later days, after the coming of the 
whites, such maps were sometimes preserved by being 
woven into the pattern of a belt of wampum. But no 
doubt we may say that with the coming of Champlain 



86 HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 

in 1609 came the first map-maker. His map of the 
lake wliich he sent to France in 1612 is the first one 
known. After him, the Jesuit missionaries often drew 
maps of their journeyings to make clear the reports 
sent home to their superiors. But the first actual sur- 
vey, with any claim to exactness, was made at the time 
of the establishment of the first military post. 

The French engineers did their work well, and the 
Quebec map was a very good one. Upon it were based 
grants of land from the king, but we do not find record 
of any portion of our soil being granted to any individ- 
ual by the French king. They named our bay, and 
drew its outline with careful exactness, but had no 
reason to penetrate the interior. 



11. 

Frencli. and Indian ^Var. 

The lake was now no longer the battle-ground for 
warring tribes of red men. The Iroquois and the 
Huron still threaded the forest or paddled over the 
water in pursuit of his enemy, with a ferocity unabated, 
but now he went always as the emissary of English or 
of French, sent out to further their schemes. Kings in 
Europe desired conquest, terrified colonies desired of 
all things security from foes near at hand, and these 
two forces drove onward in their course until they 
brought about the French and Indian war, so named 
by the English from the two foes against wdiom they 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 87 

fought. Not that the French alone emplo^^ed Indian 
alHes, for the English used every means to bring into 
the field those Indians who remained faithful to their 
cause, notabl}^ the Mohawks under the inflaence of 
William Johnson, — afterward Sir William, made a baro- 
net as a reward for service during this war. 

In August of 1755 Baron Dieskau came from Canada 
with a large force of men in boats and canoes, rowing 
up the lake to Crown Point. They came through the 
Narrows, past the Painted Kocks, across the bay to Bluff 
point, past the light-house point, and so onward, land, 
ing their fleet of boats in Bulwagga bay. The villagers 
flocked to the landing to see, and the soldiers of the 
garrison were drawn up and stood in military ar- 
ray to receive the arm^^ of Dieskau. There were 
a few hundred of the white uniforms of regulars from 
France, the only efficient part of the arra}^ as events 
proved, with a large force of the Canadian soldiery, and 
the Indian allies. The latter were hideous in war- 
paint and feathers, and insolent in their demeanor, 
swarming over the fort and the village, and looking 
with especial awe at the eaniK^n upon the ramparts, 
which they feared more than anything. Dieskau was 
never able entirely to conceal his dislike of the savages, 
and they would never do his will as they did that of 
Johnson or of Frontenac. 

Onward moved the motley army, and on the eighth 
of September the battle of Lake George was fought. 
Then began to come back straggling bands of Canadi- 
ans, with some of the white coats, but not so many, as 



SS HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the regulars alone had faced the enemy with steadiness 
and they had paid dearly for their fidelity. All the fu- 
gitives told one tale : Dieskau wounded and taken pris- 
oner, the army routed, the Enghsh pursuing. It was 
all true except the last, but Crown Point and Ticonde- 
roga never doubted it. The swiftest rowers were hur- 
ried instantly into boats with messages for Vaudreuil, 
governor of Canada, and these messages in turn brought 
reinforcements to the fort at Crown Point, and to the 
entrenchments at Ticonderoga, now strengthened in 
hot haste. 

That was a winter of terror and danger at Crown 
Point. The French held the fort in daily expectation 
of an attack from the English, who lay at the head of 
Lake George, continually sending out scouting parties 
down Lake George and through the hills and forests 
back of the forts, to lie in ambush and fall upon strag- 
glers from the garrison. 

While the two armies lay facing each other, with the 
length of Lake George between them, the English at 
the head of the lake, at Fort William Henry, and the 
French at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, scouts were 
constantly sent out from both armies to annoy the 
enemy and to ravage all the frontier. On the part of 
the French these scouts were mostly Indians, Their 
mode of warfare was exactly suited to such a task, and 
it was the only way in wdiich they were of any service 
to the French, as they almost invariably refused to 
stand upon the battle field. The English had nobody 
of Indian scouts, but they had instead the corps of the 



HISrORY OF WESTPORT 89 

New Hampshire Rangers. The leader of these was one 
Robert Rogers, a brav ■ and hardy man, who loved the 
woods and the woodsman's life. There were also, 
John Stark, who came from Rogers' own town of London- 
derry, New Hampshire, and Capt. Israel Putnam, from 
Connecticut. All the rangers were picked men, perfect 
in wood-craft and in the arts of forest warfare. Rog- 
ers, it is said, had been a smuggler before the war, and 
had smuggled French goods into the British colonies 
through the Champlain valley. Thus he had learned 
every turn of the shores of the lakes, their islands, and 
tlie mountains, streams and valleys as perhaps no other 
man of his generation knew them. He and his com- 
panions knew the shores of Westport a? well as they 
are known to-day. When the corps was formed, Rog- 
ers was twenty-eight years old, and Stark was twenty- 
seven. Putnam was older, being thirty-seven. Three 
years before this time Stark had been carried through 
the lake, a captive to the St. Francis Indians, and was 
afterwards ransomed. 

After this war was over, Rogers went to Loudon, and 
there printed his journal, containing an account of his 
military service around Lake George and Lake Cham- 
plain. His regular reports to his superiors, usually ad- 
ilressed to Sir William Johnson, Commander in Chief 
(>f the Proviicial Forces, have also been preserved, and 
agree in all main points with the printed diary. It is 
interesting to notice indications of the man's character 
in the minor differences. Thus in his report to his su- 
perior, made immediately after his return from a scout, 



90 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

and often signed by some of his officers as well as by 
himself, he gave due credit to each man for the part he 
had taken in the duties and dangers of the expedition. 
But in the printed journal he is very likely to omit all 
mention of the share taken by others in a daring deed. 
Thus in his story of a scout to Crown Point, sent out in 
October of 1755, when he and four of his men lay in 
ambush near the fort, he says : "About ten o'clock a 
single man marched out directly towards our ambush. 
When I perceived him within ten yards of me, I sprung 
over the log and met him, and offered him quarters, 
which he refused, and made a pass at me with a dirk, 
which I avoided, and presented my fusee to his breast ; 
but notwithstanding, he still pushed on with resolu- 
tion and obliged me to dispatch him." 

In his report to Johnson there is no essential differ- 
ence to this, except that he says : "Then I with another 
man ran up to him to capture him, but he refused to 
take quarters, so we killed him and took his scalp, in 
plain sight of the fort, then ran, and in plain view, 
about twenty rods, and made our escape." 

Telling his story to the London public, through his 
book, it did not seem quite necessary to mention the 
other man who helped him kill the Frenchman, much 
less to give his name, which was, as we know from 
other records, Capt. Israel Putnam. On the other 
hand, he felt it wise to leave out tha little detail 
of the scalping. It was always difficult to induce 
the English people to look with any degree of favor 
upon the practice of scalping, whether done by red mau 



HISTORY OF WESTFOnr 91 

or white, as Burgoyne found out some years later. 
But in a report to Johnson, who seemed himself to have 
the very soul of an Indian, and who would most cer- 
tainly have gloried in scalping the slain Frenchman 
exactly as did Rogers himself, it was quite a different 
matter. In another place in his journal Rogers tells 
of an English soldier killed and scalped by the Indians, 
remarking piously in a parenthesis, "such is their bar- 
barous custom." The truth is that all the Rangers 
made war as much like Indians as possible, and 
though it is all too dreadful for thought to dwell upon, it 
is only right to remember that this retaliation in kind 
was believed to serve a real purpose in the intimidation 
of the savages. 

Rogers and his men traversed the territory of West- 
port, by laud or water, six different times, as told dis- 
tinctly in his diary, in three scouts which went out from 
the head of Lake George and returned. The first is 
recorded in his Journal as follows : 

"February 29, 1756. — Agreeable to orders from Col. 
Glasier," (then commanding at Fort William Henry,) 
"I this day marched with a party of fifty-six men down 
the west side of Lake George. We continued our route 
northward till the fifth of March, and then steered east 
to Lake Cham plain, about six miles north of Crown 
Point, where bv the intelligence we had from the In- 
dians we expected to find some inhabited villages. We 
"then attempted to cross the lake, but found the ice too 
weak. The 17th we returned and marched round by 
thu bay to the west of Crown Point, and at night got 



92 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

into the cleared land among their houses and barns. 
Here we formed an ambush, expecting their labourers 
out to tend their cattle and clean their grain of which 
there were several barns full. We contmued there that 
night, and next day till dark; when discovering none 
of the enemy, we set fire to the houses and barns, and 
marched off." 

The route of this expedition was not like that of any 
other scout sent out that year, as it went farther west 
than any of them. Perhaps the Rangers went by way 
of Schroon and the western parts of Crown Point and 
Moriah, following down the valley of the Boq.uet untiK 
Rogers familiarity with the mountain passes showed 
him the best place to strike off to the shore of the lake. 
It seems more probable that the little party came 
along the highlands of Moriah to a place not fai-^from 
the present Mineville, and there turned off oyer 
the north shoulder of Bald Peak, following down the 
course of Mulleiu brook as our "Bald Peak road now 
follows it. This would bring them out at "Stevenson s. 
"About six miles north of Crown Point" would mean at 
the place where we now find the Presbrey c-amp, or Oak 
Point. Here Rogers expected to find villages which 
he might burn, but either the Indians had deceived 
him, or the inhabitants had fled to the fort o^' '« Can- 
ada If the Indians had told the truth, and the latter 
was the case, then Bessboro was inhabited before the 
French and Indian war. 

For twelve davs the Rangeis remained north of the. 
fort, presumably upon Westport territory. SV hy was- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 03 

Dot Rogers more descriptive in regard to the doings of 
those twelTe days ? Did the}' discover Nichols Pond? 
Did they stand by the falls of the Boqiiet ? Did they 
camp in sight of the island of Father Jogues ? If they 
did, we may be sure they knew little enough about 
him, for these men of Puritan blood were taught no 
sympathy with anything that savored of the Scarlet 
AVoman. I have no doubt that they tried to cross the 
lake at Barber's Point, as that was the narrowest place, 
bit the spring of 1756 must have been an early one, 
since the ice was too weak to bear them in the middle 
of March. If they could have crossed the lake they 
would have saved themselves some hard mountain 
traveling back to Fort William Henry. 

The second time that they came to Westport was 
the next July, and this was one of the most exciting 
scouts that the Rangers ever undertook. 

"About this time," says the Journal, the "General 
augmented my company to seventy men, and sent me six 
light whale boats from Albany, with orders to proceed 
immediately to Lake Champ) ain, to cut off, if possible, 
the provisions aid flying parties of the enemy. Ac- 
cordingly, June 28, 1756, I embarked with fifty men in 
tive whale boats, and proceeded to an island in Lake 
George. The next day, at abi)ut five miles distance 
from this island, we landed our boats and carried them 
about six miles over a mountain to South Bay, where 
we arrived the third of July. The following evening 
we embarked again, and went- down the bay to 
within six miles of the French fort, where we concealed 



94 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

our boats till the eveniug. We then embarked again, 
and passed by Ticonderoga undiscovered, though we 
were so near the enemy as to hear their centry's watch- 
word. About five miles further down we again con- 
cealed our boats and lay by all day. At night we put 
off again, with a design to pass by Crown Point, but 
afterward judged it imprudent by means of the clear- 
ness of the night, so lay concealed again the next day, 
when near a hundred boats passed by us, seven of 
which came very near the point where we were. About 
nine o'clock at night we reimbarked, and passed the 
fort at Crown Point, and again concealed our boats at 
about ten miles distance from it." That is, very prob- 
ably, upon the point south of the Baie des Roches Fen- 
dus, which we now call Bluff point. They drew up 
their boats just "at break of day," having gone as far 
as they dared in the short summer night. 

The boats were concealed in the underbrush fring 
ing the shore, while the men slept under the trees 
all day. Sentinels were posted where they could 
command the lake, and never keener eyes peered 
out from the thick foliage, nor quicker ears list- 
ened for every sound. Watching was no dull business 
on that day, (the seventh of July,) for thirty boats from 
the French forts went by toward Canada, and a schooner 
of about thirty or forty tons. The Hangers were too 
near Crown Point to dare an attack, and besides, it 
was their especial purpose to intercept boats coming 
from Canada, laden with provisions. All day they 
slept and watched, and in the evening slid their boats 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT ^5 

into the water and rowed away to the north. "About 
fifteen miles further down," which was somewhere be- 
tween Split Rock and the mouth of the Boquet, they 
landed again. The next day they had their oppor- 
tunity. Two lighters, manned with twelve men and 
loaded with wheat, flour, rice, wine and brandy for the 
French forts, were captured and sunk, and four of the 
men killed. One of these was dispatched after having 
been made prisoner, when it became plain that he was 
wounded so severely that he was unable to walk. This 
fact Eogers did not parade before his London audience, 
nor that they took back with them four scalps as well 
as eight prisoners to Fort William Henry, but it was 
all duly reported to his chief. 

It was learned from the prisoners that they belonged 
to a force of five hundred men, which was making its 
way as rapidly as possible to Crown Point Fifty men 
oould not face five hundred, and if they launched their 
boats they were sure to be seen and pursued. Now ap- 
pears the reason why they had always landed for con- 
cealment upon the western shore,-~"So that if they were 
obliged to abandon their boats they might return to the 
fort through mountain paths familiar to them but un- 
known to the eneiiiy. So they hid their boats in the 
woods, with some kegs of brandy which they had saved 
from the captured lighters, and made their way back t{» 
the head of Lake George, being about a week on the 
way. 

It was now necessary that another expedition should 
be undertaken to recover the boats and the brand v. 



96 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

if possible. AccordiDgly, on the sixteenth of August, 
the third and last scout of this year wh.oh traversed 
Westport land set out from Fort Wilham Henry It 
went in two departments, one commanded by Eogei, 
and the other by Stark. They were also accompamed 
bv thirty of the Stockbridge Indians, who had lately 
c^me into camp, and by eight Mohawks "We then 
marched," says Eogers, "directly to the place where we 
left our whale boats the seventh of July, Proceeding 
about twenty-five miles northward to Crown Point tort 
on the west side of Lake Champlain." They tound the 
boats as they had left them, though no mention is made 
of the brandy. Perhaps even the civilized Stookbridge 
Indians could not be trusted within reach of liquor, a.ul 
surely no Mohawk could be, even on the war-path. 
They embarked in the boats, which proves that the 
partv could not have numbered more than fifty men, 
unfess some of them were sent back by land. T)iey re- 
turned safelv up the lake, but this time no perilous pas- 
sage of the forts was attempted. Tho French had re- 
ceived reinforcements since theHangershadpassed them 
before, and perhaps a better watch was kept. At any 
rate, we may trust Rogers and Stark to have under- 
stood what were the chances of success, and they did 
„ot undertake it. Besides, they had as yet no prisone,-, 
and this was one of the main objects uf every scout, 
both as a means of obtaining information and to render 
themselves constantly feared among the French setle- 
meuts. So they landed on the east shore, hid then 
boats eight miks north of Crown Point, and succeeded 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 97 

in taking some prisoners in the village on Chimney 
Point, opposite the fort, with whom tliey returned. 

The Rangers never recovered their boats. On Oc- 
tober twenty-seventh a sentinel was captured under the 
very walls of FortTiconderoga, who told them "that th^e. 
French had taken four of Captain Rogers' whale boats 

in Lake Cham plain," -which does not account for 

the fifth boat. The discovery of these boats threw the 
French into a great state of disma\^ and consternation. 
They were no birch bark canoes, but large and well 
made craft, each one capable of carrying ten men, an I 
the French reasoned that it was manifestly impossible 
that such a flotilla could have escaped the observation of 
the sentinels at the two forts. "Therefore," said they, 
"there must be some water passage, unknown to us, 
which leads from Lake George to Lake Champlain." 
And they sent out parties with the express purpose of 
discovering this passage. 

After this, the power of France pushed more and 
more determinedly from the north, the forts were more 
strongly garrisoned, and the Rangers had more to do 
near their own posts. Consequently, none of their 
scouts reached again as far north as the soil of West- 
port. 

The winter of 1757 saw a force of Canadians and In- 
dians go by ou the ice, dragging sledges, and well 
equipped for an attack on Fort William Henry — the af- 
fair of St. Patrick's Day. Then it came back, toiling 
through three feet of snow, a large number of the party 
struck snowblind and led by the hand, with no prisoners 



98 HISTORY or WESTPORT 

aocl no victory worth boasting. But the next summer 
came serious business indeed. 

Up to this time, no such army had ever passed 
through Westport waters as that which Montcalm 
gathered at Ticonderoga during the month of July. 
Six thousand white men and two thousand red, moved 
on to the siege and massacre of Fort William Henry. 
Let us be thankful that it is no part of our story to 
tell over again that tale. Only in one particular does 
it come within our circle of interest. It may be that 
William Gillilaud was present at that massacre. 

Says Watson, in "Pioneers of the Champlain Valley," 
"the 26th regiment of the line, to which Gilliland was 
attached, formed the ill-fated garrison of Fort William 
Henry in 1757, which suffered so fearfally in the mas- 
sacre by the Indians under Gen. Montcalm. Whether 
Gilliland was present at that calamitous event I have 
no means of ascertaining, but his silence on such a sub- 
ject warrants the presumption that he was not." 

It is like Watson's grave punctiliousness that he re- 
fuses to state as a fact anything which cannot be abso- 
lutely proved, but surely the probabilities are great that 
Gilliland was there. His discharge, given at Philadel- 
phia in 1758, certifies that "William Gillilan hath served 
honestly and faithfully for the space of four years." It is 
well known that Gilliland received a grant of land near 
Split Rock in return for his services in.the "Old French 
War," and that his first acquaintance with the shores 
of Lake Champlain dates from the time when he was 
a soldier iu the British army. But "may have" and 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT .9.9 

"Dot impossible" are not very satisfactory substitutes 
for history. What we do know certaiuly is that after 
the surrender and the massacre, for many a sad day, 
these shores saw the lake full of boats laden with plun- 
der from the garrison and with hundreds of captives 
being hurried away to Canada. Only a week after the 
massacre Montcalm himself went by, carrying his bur- 
den of threatened disgrace, and leaving the frontier to 
a winter of little incident. The next June he came 
again, but the fleet that covered the water, rowing and 
sailing onward in martial array, carried an army not so 
large as that of the summer before. In July was fought 
the Battle of Ticonderoga, where four thousand men 
behind entrenchments said to sixteen thousand, "Thus 
far and no farther," and then Montcalm sailed past 
once more, and looked his last upon our mountains and 
our bay. 

After the repulse of Abercrombie, Israel Putnam 
was captured by the Indians in a skirmish, and carried 
to Canada. Bound with cords he went, blackened with 
the smoke of the fire which the savages had built to 
burn him alive, only giving up their purpose upon the 
intervention of a French officer, with a fresh gash upon 
his cheek, but still looking with eager eyes and una- 
bated spirit upon the freedom of our hills. If his cap- 
tors camped for a night upon the island of Button 
Mould Bay, Putnam might have had a vision, as he lay 
sleeping beneath the stars, with the sound of the lap- 
ping water in his ears, of another century, and of a de- 
scendant of his own upon the same island, sleeping 



100 HIISTORY OF WESTFORT 

with the same sound woven into the fabric of his 
dreams. In the autumn the hardy Ranger was ex- 
changed, and lived to fight England as fiercely as ever 
he fought France. 

Another year, and Amherst advanced upon Ticonde- 
roga from the south. On the evening of July 26, 1759, a 
terrific explosion resounded over lake and forest for many 
a league. Boulamarque had blown up the fort at Ti- 
conderoga and retreated to Crown Point. Here he did 
the same thing, and moved away to the north, and with 
him went the domination of France from our land and 
water. Never again floated the flag of the fleitr de Us 
from the bastions of St. Frederic. The villagers, who 
had suffered so much from the bullet and torch of the 
Rangers, either loaded their household goods into 
bateaux and followed the army, or chose to remain and 
face the chances of life under the cross of Sc. George. 

Amherst came deliberately on, and stopped to build 
a new fort and a fleet at Crown Point. Then were 
raised the massive ramparts and the barracks whose 
ruins we now see. It is a fort which never saw a battle, 
and has never been of any military consequence since 
it was built. Had Amherst known that he was simply 
fashioning a background for Sunday School picnics! 
But it is not always given us to know to what uses our 
work shall be put, and Amherst was well satisfied with 
his. To no more purpose was his fleet of boats, for 
which he turned Bulwagga bay into a ship-yard, as did 
Arnold after him. On the eleventh of October Am- 
herst went on board his sloop 6f sixteen guns and, ac- 



TITSTORY OF WESTrORT 101 

cc)mpiiuied by a brigautiue, a radeau aud his army in 
large bateaux, set forth for the support of Wolfe at 
Quebec. Ten days after, and he is seen returning, hav- 
ing lost twelve boat-loads of soldiers iu an inglorious 
battle with the elements. There had been oue of our 
Autumn gales, aud the boats, probably very badly 
Mianaged, had foundered, while the rest of the fleet had 
sought shelter under the western shore. Perhaps some 
of the rear boats got no farther than Northwest Bay. 

Amherst made no further attempt to join Wolfe, and 
Quel)ec was taken without him September 18th, 1759. 
Montcalm and Wolfe were both killed, and the war was 
practically ended. 

Fighting in the British army at this time was a man 
with a remarkable history, by name Philip Skene. He 
was a Scotchman, and a lineal descendant of William 
Wallace. He entered the army in 1739, and had a 
most active and honorable record. He w^as in many 
battles, the most famous of which was that of Culloden, 
1745. when the hopes of the last Stuart pretender, 
^'Bonnie Prince Charlie," were laid low. He was a 
captain in the army of Abercrombie in the attack upon 
Ticonderoga, July 8, 1756, and was there wounded. 
His regiment w-as the 27th, or the Inniskilling Foot. 
The next year he was with the army of Amherst when 
it marched into the dismantled and smoking fort at Ti- 
conderoga, and he accompanied it to Crown Point. 
When, in October, Amherst set out with the main body 
of his army to join Wolfe in Canada, Skene was left 



102 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

behind, detailed to serve as Major of Brigade at Crown 
Point under Brigadier Buggies. 

Thus Skene had every opportunity to become ac- 
quainted with the shores of the lake, especially at the 
southern end, and it was no doubt while he was sta- 
tioned at Crown Point that he learned the value of the 
iron mine on the lake shore which we now call "the 
Cheever," and which he took measures to secure to 
himself as soon as possible at the close of the war. We 
do not know that this bed was discovered at all during 
the French occupation. Skene was the first to own 
and to work it, and its name for a generation or more 
was "Skene's Ore Bed." He founded Skenesboro in 
1761. In 1771 he was granted two thousand four hun- 
dred acres of some of the best land in Westport, which 
is known to this day as "Skene's Patent." We may be 
sure that he first saw it that summer of 1759 which he 
spent at Crown Point, and that he rowed along its 
shore in Northwest Bay, looking at it with calculating 
eyes, and walked over it, too, thinking how he would 
ask for a grant of it as soon as ever it came into the gift 
of the King of England. 

Israel Putnam was also at Crown Point that summer, 
a captain in the colonial troops, and while the army 
still lay there Rogers went down the lake again for the 
last time, destroying the Indian village on the St. 
Francis river in Canada. He came back to Crown 
Point by way of the Connecticut river, but one of his 
lieutenants, McMullin, with eight men, returned through 
the wilderness to Crown Point with a message to Am- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT los 

herst. In only nine da^-s they made the journey, and 
thus for the last time was our soil traversed by a band 
of Kogers' Rangers. 

Would that we might believe that brave Lieutenant 
McMullen, (or McMullin, as Watson uses both spell- 
ings,) gave his name to our Mullein brook as did Israel 
Putnam to "Put's creek" in Crown Point. Methinks 
I have seen an amateur genealogist hail with joy the 
discovery of a new ancestor on the strength of evidence 
as slender as that which we can bring forward in sup- 
port of this theors'. "What more likely," etc., etc. At 
any rate, we might do a little toward making history 
more logical, (a service which it often sadly needs,) 
especially in the matter of the names of places, by call- 
ing the brook after him now."^ 

Let Watson describe for us the last scene of this war. 

"On the 16th of August, 1760, the last brilliant mar- 
tial procession of the war departed from Crown Point. 
Bearing about three thousand regulars and provincials, 
under the command of CoI:>nel Havilaud, it moved 
<lown the lake in a long line of bateaux, under the con- 
voy of four armed vessels with an equal number of 
radeaux, each of which bore a heavy armament. 
Bichard Montgomery, who had already attracted the 
attention, and won the applause of Wolfe, at Louis- 
bourg, accompanied this expedition, as adjutant of the 
Seventeenth regiment of foot."t 

*In one of Gilliland^s lists of the names of soldiers who received from the crown 
grants of land on the western side of Lake Champlain, we find the name of Patrick 
McMullen, though it is impossible to decide the locality of his grant, 

-f-The Treaty of Paris, in 1765, gave England formal possession cf this our soil 



104 HISTORY OF WESTFOET 

III. 

Oillilaiid and Bessl3oro. 

On June 7th, 1765, our shores were passed by Gilli- 
kmd's first party of colonists. Many an army had 
made its way across these waters, but never before such 
an army of occupation. Homely and huudrum it must 
have looked in comparison to the gorgeous "armies 
with banners" who had flaunted such martial pageantry 
in the shadow of our cliffs. There were four hxrge 
bateaux, heavily loaded with twenty or more people, 
and with "eighty barrels of stores." There was also a 
raft of boards, sawed at the saw-mill at Ticonderoga, 
and there was a drove of cattle which had been forced 
to swim the lake at Crown Point, making its way along 
the opposite shore. This proves that at this time there 
was no road across Westport fit for driving cattle 
thiough. There were four white women with the col- 
onists, — the wife of the millwright, the wife of the 
weaver, Gilliland's housekeeper, and an indentured 
servant gii 1. Gilliland's negro man, Ireland, had been 
left for a few days at Ticonderoga, His was the fiist 
black face which looked upon Westport, but there were 
afterward others at Milltown. Slaves played a larger 

England held it just twenty years, disputed, of course, from the day of the taking- 
of Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. After that it may be said 
to have belonged to "the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress" until the 
final settlement of the Vermont land troubles in 1789. From that time until now 
it has belonged to the State of New York. 



I 



HISTORY OF WEsrroirr n>r, 

part ill the labor of cleariDg our lands for settlement 
than is often realized, since the founders of Plattsburgh, 
as well as Gilliland, brought numbers of slaves with 
them when they first came. 

But who was Gilliland, and win- is his name invoked 
with such confidence? William GilHland, dear stranger, 
was none other than the Pioneer of tbe Champlain Val- 
ley, the first settler and colonizer in all this wilderness 
between Crown Point and Canada. After the settle- 
ment around the military posts of Ticouderoga and 
Crown Point, and the colony at Skenesboro at the ex- 
treme southern end of the lake, his settlement at the 
mouth of the Boquet river (which he called Milltowu, 
naming the township Willsboro) was the first home of 
white men in all the length and breadth of the Valley. 
Thus the day jnst named may well begin a new chap- 
ter, and the rude little fleet engage oar attention as it 
labors s ^berly fjong. We may know all the details of 
the expedition from reading Gilliland's diary, preserved 
by his descendants and printed a hundred years after- 
ward by Winslow C. Watson, in a book called The Pi- 
oneer History of the Champlain Valley. From this 
book we learn that William Gilliland was, like Sir 
William Johnson, Sir Guy Carleton and Richard 
Montgomery, an Irishman. He was born near Ar- 
magh, in the province of Ulster, about the year 
1734. There is a romantic st<n-y of an interrupted love 
afi'air with a young and beautiful Lady Betsy Eckles, 
frowned upon by her family, and resulting in the emi- 
gration of the presumptuous lover to America. Here 



Km HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

lie served four years as a private iu the British army, 
lighting in the French and Indian War. His regiment, 
the Thirty-fifth, formed a part of the garrison of Fort 
William Henry at the time of its surrender to Montcalm, 
in 1757. If he was with his regiment at the time, he 
must have been a witness of the Indian massacre 
wdiich followed the surrender of the fort. He was 
discharged from the army iu 1758, and the next year 
married Elizabeth Phagan, daughter of a rich merchant 
of Jamaica. Gilliland received with his wife a consid- 
erable dowry, and became his father-in-law's partner in 
a large mercantile business in the city of New York. 

Peace between England and France was proclaimed 
in 1763, and it became possible for the British crown 
to give title to the unoccupied lands of the wilderness 
north and west of the Hudson river valley. Emigra- 
tion was encouraged by grants of land to soldiers of the 
recent war, the size ol the grants varying according to 
the military rank of the recipients. Thus a private re- 
ceived fifty acres, and a non-commissioned officer two 
hundred acres. In almost every case these soldiers' 
grants were sold immediately to land speculators, men 
of capital who bought with the purpose of obtaining 
large tracts for sale or settlement. William Gilliland 
invested the greater part of the fortune he had accum- 
ulated in the purchase of twelve large tracts, all located 
(m the western shore of Lake Ohamplain, between 
Crown Point and Cumberland Head. Two of these 
tracts, according to Mr. Watson, lay wdthin the present 
territory of owv township, and conjprised four thousand 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT KH 

tive hundred acres. One tract, lying along the south- 
eastern shore, and containg two thousand three hundred 
acres, he named Bessboro, after his baby daughter 
EHzabeth. Of his ownership of a second tract in West- 
port we cannot now find the least trace, but it seems ex- 
ceedingly likely that he attempted to purchase the 
land adjoining Bessboro on the north, granted a few 
years afterward by the king to Phihp Skene. The num- 
ber of acres in the Skene patent does not exactly cor- 
respond, but the early saiveyors never let a little matter 
oi two or three hundred acres trouble them. Gilliland 
himself gives a list of fourteen non-commissioned offi- 
cers and ten privates whose claims he had bought out 
to obtain possession of the patent of Bessboro, appar- 
ently oblivious of the discrepancy^ of a thousand acres 
between these aggregate claims and the actual surve}'. 

The king granted ownership of these large patents 
with the reservation to himself of all gold and silver 
mines, and all pine trees lit for masts for ships of his 
navy. There were also conditions that three acres out 
of every fifty capable of cultivation should be tilled, 
with settlers in the proportion of one family to every 
thousand acres. 

Thus we com^ at last to the first individual owner- 
ship of any part of Westport land. Bessboro was tirst 
surveyed, as appear^ from Giliiland's own papers, in 
eTune of 1764, by Col. Thomas Palmer, Deputy Survey- 
or, acting by order of Alexander Golden, Esq., the then 
Surveyor General. The work was done at the expense 
of Gilliland, and he appears to have accompanied the 



KhS HT STORY OF WE ST PORT 

surveying party, he himself being a competent sur- 
veyor. The survey "passed council the 20th Feby., 
1765, as per council minute book may appear." 

Thus it is plain that the First Year of our town chro- 
nology is 1764, and our First Da}^ is that one in June 
when Gilliland and Palmer, witli their axemen, carrying 
chain and compass, followed the outline of Bessboro 
through the unbroken forest from our Bluff Point west- 
ward, then south, then west again to the foot of the 
mountains, and so down to our Mullein brook, which 
they called Beaver brook, and back to the lake shore 
again, coming out of the woods very nearly at the place 
reached b}^ Rogers and his Rangers, in March of 1756, 
(only eight years before), when they were seeking 
French villages to burn, — plans different indeed to 
those of Gilliland. He had encompassed a stretch of 
land as fair and fertile as any in the world, rolling from 
the lake shore to the foot of the mountains, well wa- 
tered, richly wooded, close under the protection of the 
fort at Crown Point, and if ever a beautiful prospect had 
power to touch an Irish heart, Ikuv njust his have 
swelled with joy as he measured these acres for him- 
self. And though he gained n(^ riches from its 
possession, losing it all before he died, yet it has 
borne his nan)e, and the name he gave it, for one hun- 
dred and thirty-eight years, as we write ncjw, and is 
like to perpetuate his memoi-y as long as land is named 
by man. The whole extent of the patent is now highly 
cultivated, dotted with barns and farmhouses, and trav- 
ersed from nortli to south b}^ the railroad. 



HISTORY OF WESrrORT ion 

After the Revolution, when all land titles derived from 
the British crown were thrown into more or loss confus- 
ion and uncertainty, Gillihmd had great difficult}^ in ob- 
taining recognition of his riglits as owner of Bessboro. 
But at last a new survey was ordered, and he received his 
title from the state in 1786. In the capitol at Albany 
lie the field notes of this second survev. A certified 
copy of them, as well as a copv of a map of Bessboro, 
also certified, (showing the shape of the patent as out- 
lined upon the map opposite our title-page,) was sent 
me by the kindness of the Hon. William Pierson Jud- 
son, Deputy State Engineer. As the field notes con- 
stitute a description of the boundaries of the patent, 
and have never been printed, they nre given in a note.''' 
The point of departure of the survey was "a hemlock 
tree standing on the bank of the lake," and the only 
names given are those of "'B&y de Roche Fendu" and 
"a place known by the name of Rattlesnake Den." This 
must have been near the limestone quarry, and not far 
from the spot where the Y. M. C. iV. boys camped for 

*In consequence of a Warrant of Survey from the Surveyor General of 
the State of New York, to be directed, bearing date the — day of November, 
17S6, I have performed the following Survey for William Gilliland, of a certain 
Tract, piece or parcel of Land, Situate, lying and being in the County of Washing- 
ton, and on the West side of Lake Champlain, known by the name of Beth-Bor- 
rough. 

Began September 24th, 1786, at a heap of Stones lying between a Black Oak 
Tree, marked Z. P. 1786— W. G, 1786, eight links east from a Hemlock Tree 
marked Z. P. 17S6— W. G. 1786, Standing on the Bank of said Lake, between a 
place known by the name of Rattle Snake Den, and the Bay de Roche Fendu, on 
the south side of the entrance of said Bay, which is the most easterly corner of a 
Tract of 2400 Acres of Land, granted to Major Philip Skeen. 

Runnmg thence on a South line of said Skeen's Patent, S. 89 deg. 04', W. 44 
chains to a Stake thirteen links West from a Beech Tree cornered and marked Z, P. 



110 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

so many years on the Worman property. I cannot find 
that any rattlesnake has been seen there for at least the 
space of one generation, but the name brings out vividly 
the wild loneliness of the shore when the surveyors 
first stepped upon it. An epoch is marked in the his- 
tory of the reclamation of a piece of land from the wil- 
derness when the names given to points within it are no 
longer those of natural objects. This epoch came to 
Westport when Gillilaiid named his patent after his 
daughter. 

Happj is that land whose first settlers have a genius 
for nomenclature ! xlud it* this be so, happy is the land | 
whose second century shall honor the name-giving 
of the first. William Gillilaud was blessed with a good 
name himself, a fact of some importance when history 
comes to be written, and the names which he gave to 
places were always graceful and pertinent. Before the 
coming of Elizabeth his wife he had named the present 
site of Essex village after her, and two of his northern 
patents were named Janesboro and Charlottesbi)ro, 

1786 — W. G., thence S. 00 deg. 56' E. 94 chains to a stake eighteen links southeast 
from a Beech Tree cornered and marked Z. P. 17S6— W. G., being the Southeast 
corner of said Skean's Patent, thence S. S9 deg. o4' W. 156 chains 60 links to a 
Beech Tree marked W. G. 17S6, thence South 191 chains to a Birch Tree marked 
W. G. 1786, standing on the north bounds of a small Tract of two hundred Acres 
of Land surveyed for Zephaniah Piatt, Esq., thence East along the North Bounds 
of said Tract of two hundred Acres, 80 chains 60 links to a Hemlock Tree marked 
Z. P. 17S6— W. G., standing on the Bank of the Lake, thence Northerly along the 
West Bank of said Lake as it winds and turns to the pla.ce of Beginning, contain- 
ing 2600 Acres of Land, and the usual allowance for Highways. 

That the within Survey has been performed with accuracy to the best of my 
knowledge I aver and attest. 

(Signed) JONAS S. ADDOxMS, 

D. G. Surveyor. 



HTSTORY OF WESTrORT 111 

after two claughters. A branch of the Ausable which 
he discovered he named "Cullen Water." Many of the 
settlers at MilUown gave names to their farms, one be- 
ing EnniskelHng and another Killeen, showing delight- 
fully the Irish origin of the tenants. The name of 
MilUowu itself was doubtless taken from that of a vil- 
lage not far from Armagh, in Ireland, where Gilliland 
was born, and there is a AYillsboro on Lough Foyle, in 
Londonderry, which he must have known familiarl}. 
Bessboro is also an Irish name, since there is an estate 
in the south of Ireland, "a demesne in the Barony of 
Iverk, parish of Fiddtown, County Kilkenny," near the 
river Suir, which was granted to Sir John Ponsonby, a 
Major in the army of Cromwell, and named by him 
Bessborough for his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Henry 
Lord Foliot. The highest title of the Ponsonby family 
is taken from this Irish estate, John George Brabazon 
Ponsonby being made first Earl of Bessborough in 
1789. Much pleasant but ])iofitless labor has been 
spent in the effort to trace some (connection between 

Sworn before me this 

22 Day of December, 1786. 

(Signed) ABRAHAM KEIGHT, Jus. Peace. 

Accompanying the copy of these field notes is the following document: 
STATE OF NEW YORK, 
Office of the State Engineer and Surveyor. 

I have compared the preceding copy of Field Notes of survey of Lot number — 
in the — Tract, with the description of survey found in book number 10, p. 129, on 
file in this office, and I do hereby certify the same to be a correct transcript there- 
from and of the whole of the field notes of survey of said lot. 

Witness my hand and seal of office of the State Engineer and Surveyor, at the 
City of Albany, the eight day of April, one thousand nine hundred and one,; 
^Signed) VVM. PIERSON JUDSON, 

Deputy State Engineer and Surveyor. 



11-2 HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 

Gillilaud aud the Irish Bessborouj^h, but it seeais prob- 
able that the uairie only lay in his memory with those 
of all other places in the Emerahl Isle, to be brought 
forth when his own fortunes reached a point where he 
too might give a name to a baronage or a principality. 

Now let us return to the narrative of events clnsely 
aliecting our liistory. The next year, in June of 176(1 
Gilliland brought his family to Milltown. They started 
from New York on the *28th of April, in two heavily 
loaded bateaux, and had a difficult and perilous pas- 
sage. At Stillwater one of the bateaux was upset, and 
two children were drowned, one of them Gilliland's 
oldest child, Jane, aged six years. "My lovely daugh- 
ter !" exclaims Gilliland as he records the disaster in 
his diary, and he mourns his loss in a touching eulogy 
upon the child's perfections. 

They came by way of Lake George, t detained at 

Then follows the great blood -red seal of the State of New York, of an aspect 
awesome indeed, and sufficient, one would think, to command belief in statements 
much more doubtful than these. 

It will be noticed that the name of the patent is variously written. Gilliland him- 
self wrote it Bessborough, and in the field notes the surveyor writes it, certainly 
with a great effort, "Beth-Borrough." In our town records it is "Bettsborough." 
On Burr's map of the county, 1S39, it is "Bossborough," and in an act of the Leg- 
islature of 1S49 it is "Bassburgh," but these two forms are evidently misprints. 

Hon. Richard L.. Hand, of Elizabethtown, President of the Essex County His- 
torical Society, has called my attention to a "Besborough" in north-eastern Ver- 
mont, lying on both sides of the Passamsick river, which is shown on Sauthier's 
map of 1779. It would be interesting to know the history of the name in that place. 

tin that charming little book, "Lake George in History." by Elizabeth Eggle- 
ston Seelye, allusion is made to the passage of Baroness Riedesel and Lady Har- 
riet Ackland through lake George in 1777, with the statement: "They were the 
first white women to see this lake, except the few wives of common soldiers and 
camp followers." Probably the author had never heard of Mistress Gilliland, who 
went through eleven years before. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT I Li 

nearly every stopping place by the severe illness of Mr. 
Gilliland. Quoting his diary : 

"2d Jane, arrived at fort George on that day, in the 
evening. My illness continuing, detained us all at fort 
George for nine days, from the 2d, to Wednesday, 11th 
June, then put all my stores and embarked myself and 
family on board of Wm. Stoughtou's schooner, and hav- 
ing a fair wind arrived this evening at Ticonderoga land- 
ing,vvhere being necessarily detained th6l2th, embarked 
the next day on board the sloop Musquenuuge, aod 
iu a passage of one and three-fourths hours arrived 
at Crown Point on the evening of Friday the 13tli June. 
Here my disorders returning, I was confined by my 
room, often to bed, to Saturday the 21st June. Then 
left Crown Point, and the wind being favorable, arrived 
the evening of this day, pretty late at Ge.^rge Belton's, 
where we staid all night, and the next day being Sun- 
day, 22d June, proceeded on our Journey, and arrived 
in Milltown, in Willsboro. Mrs. Elizabeth Gilliland, 
my spouse, being the first lady of our family that landed 
in Willsborough." 

So it was the twenty-first of June, and on a Saturda}^ 
that the women of the family first saw Bessboro, from 
the deck of the sloop Musquenunge. The wdjole party 
consisted, as Gilliland takes pains formally to set down, 
oi "my wife Mrs. Ehzabeth Gilliland, my mother Mrs. 
Jane Gilliland, my sister Miss Charity Gilliland, my 
brother Mr. James Gilliland, my daughter Miss Eliza- 
beth Gilliland, my niece Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, my 



114 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Bervaut girl Rachel McFarden, and my negro man 
Ireland." 

GiUiland was at this time not much over thirt}^ Lit- 
tle Elizabeth was two years old, and the only child left 
them since the drowning of her sister. How she mast 
have been guarded by mother, grandmother and aunt, 
and what a sad company it must have been. Perhaps 
the father took little Bess iu his arms, and pointed out 
to her the shores which he had called by her name, 
traced the boundaries of the patent and exulted over its 
beauty and extent. 

All that summer the lake was busy with the traffic of 
the colonists. Philip Skene was also at work build- 
ing up his colony at the southern end of the lake, and 
his boats came often to the ore bed on the shore below 
Crown Point for ore for his forges. It seems probable 
that the personal acquaintance of Skene and Gilliland 
dates from this period. 

In September came a very distiiiguished party from 
the south, and one which Gilliland seems to have felt 
it his duty to welcome. A commission had been ap- 
pointed by the crown to verify the boundary line be- 
tween the provinces of Quebec and New York, and was 
composed of Sir Henry Moore, Governor of New York, 
Sir Guy Carleton, Governor of Quebec, Philip Schuy- 
ler, afterward our General Schuyler of the Revolution^ 
and an astronomer named Robert Harper. These gen- 
tlemen weie accompanied by a nephew of Sir Guy 
Carleton, tprobabh' Christopher, afterwards Major 
Carleton,) an attorney named John McKesson,, ami 



HISTORY OF WEST PORT Ihy 

Capt. Charles FredeDbnrgb, and they came up the 
Hudson from New York, arriving at Fort George the 
second of September. There Gillihind met theai, and 
writes in his diary : 

"Governor Moore immediately gave me an invitation 
to become one at his table, which I accepted. He and 
Governor Carleton accepted my invitation to take their 
passage in my Bateaux across the lakes, and we all ar- 
rived safe at Crown Point on Saturday, 6th Sep., 1766." 
The next day observations were taken to determine the 
exact latitude of the fort. "After dinner embarked for 
home in my Bateau, t)ie Governors and other gentle- 
men embarking before dinner, in the sloop. Overtook 
them at Button Mould Bay and went aboard the sloop, 
where dinner beiug just served up, I dined with them; 
there beiug little or no wind, tarried with them 4 or 5 
hours, and then pushed off in my boat for home, where 
I arrived about one in the morning, found all well." 

So it was ahnost in Westport waters that the Boun- 
dary Commission was becalmed fo?- a half da}^ or more, 
a party of eight at dinner, talking, perchance, of the 
prosperit}^ of the provinces since the peace with France 
had been declared, and of the future of this beautiful 
valley and waterway which had been gained so recently 
by England. Perhaps Gilliland pointed out to theui 
the shore of Bessboro, aud told of his plans for its set- 
tlemement. Ten years afterward Governor Carleton 
came again to the same spot, but that time he sailed 
from the north, struggling against a contrary wiod in 
the pursuit of the escaping colonial fleet, grounded aud 



lie HIS TOUT OF WESTFORT 

burned before his eyes not two miles from Button Bay, 
But neither he nor Philip Schuyler thought how they 
should fight each other in the future, as they drank 
their wine together, and when the wind sprang up 
again they went on their way to Canada. A week af- 
terward Governor Moore and his party came back, and 
on the 20th of September Gilliland wrote in his diary : 
"This day Sir Henry Moore, Col. Eeid, Philip Schuy- 
ler, Robert Harper and Adolphus Benzel,* Esq's, called 
and drank tea, etc., with us, on their return from As- 
tronomer's Island, having completed their observation 
to satisfaction, and fixed the line about 5 miles to the 
northward of Windmill Point." 

And so Mistress Gilliland had company in the best 
room of the house at Milltown, of which we only know 
that it was built the year before "with logs, 44 feet by 
22," and had ^'a double chimney." The furniture had 
all been brought from New York, — twenty-two wagon 
loads," — -and it is to be hoped that enough china tea- 
cups for the use of the Governor's party had arrived 
unbroken. What would we give now for the tea-pot 
which held the tea? We can imagine the group sitting 
around the great open fire-place in the evening. It is 
said that Sir Henry Moore was "a gay, afiable, good- 
natured and well-bred gentleman." Little Bess was 
the only child to be noticed, and Philip Schuyler had 
babies of his own at home. Did he take her on his 

♦Adolphus Benzel was the first to fill the office of "Inspector of Hi& 
Majesty's woods and forests aud unappropriated lands on Lake Champlain and ini 
Cauad.a." He was the eng^lneer who planned the extensive works at Crown Point , 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 117 

knee and win her heart as he won the hearts of the 
children of Baroness Biedesel, and the heart of the 
Baroness lierself, when he took them under his protec- 
tion after the battle of Saratoga? 

The Commissioners passed on their way, Schuyler 
perhaps the only one of them destined ever to see that 
hearthstone again, and the next day another little 
daughter was born, aud named Jane Willsborough Gil- 
liland, the first name in memory of the little girl 
drowned at Stillwater in May. 

And when little Bess was a lass of six, and Willsboro 
had become a large and thriving settlement, her father's 
plans for colonizing Bessboro began to be fulfilled, in 
the coming of Raymond- 



IV. 

Rayniond and the Revolution. 
The First Home in Westport was made by one Ed- 
ward Eaymond, in the year 1770. Who this man was, 
whence h > came, to what place he went after his sojourn 
on these shores, we cannot tell. We do know that he 
was one of Gillilaud's colonists, and that the greater 
part of these were said to be Irish, like Gilliland him- 
self. Raymond is a good Irish name, and one borne 
bj a noble family. Most of the earliest settlers at Mill- 
town came from New York, but ever}^ party of emi- 
grants was joined b}^ others all along the way, at 
Albany, or Skenesborough, or at any place wljere there 



lis HISTORY OF WESTPORT ] 

was an opportunity. Gilliland advertised in the "Mer- 
cury," a New York paper, offering inducements to "la- 
dustrious Farmers" and others who would go to the 
promised land of Lake Champlain. But Raymond can- 
not be ranked in the class of ordiiiary colonists, most 
of them so poor that they were obliged to work for the 
first few years for a bare maintenance, as it is plain 
that he must have been a man of means. 

Raymond settled upon Gilliland's patent of Bess- 
boro, at the mouth of the stream which we now call the 
Raymond brook, building a saw mill and a grist mill 
upon the little fall. On all this vast frontier, there was 
hardly a mx)re promising place of settlement than the 
one he chose. On one of the main waterways of the 
country, in a virgin land fast filling with eager settlers, 
he was in the direct line of all travel north and south, 
convenient to the settlements along the Vermont shore, 
and not far from the fort at Crown Point. There was at 
that time no better mill site on the shore of the lake. 
In those days of full streams, before the woodsman's 
axe had let in light and air to dry the face of the ground, 
the mouth of the brook was as wide as the little bay 
into which it flows, and deep enough for loaded boats 
to come almost to the foot vof^the fall. Thus was af- 
forded a harbor safe from storms and passing enemies. 

Here Raymond settled, and here he lived for six years, 
during the time of the greatest prosperity of the colony 
on the Boquet. These were the years which show 
forth once more the truth of that wise saying, "Happy 
is that land which has no history," for Gilliland's diary 



II /STORY OF WESTPORT 119 

ceased to be regularly kept after June of 1707. Thus 

we find uo mention of Raymond's settlement in the 

diary. The most direct testimony in regard to it is 

found in au afindavit discovered among the Land Papers 

of the Secretary of State by Mr. Henry Harmon Noble. 

This affidavit is referred to in Watson's "Pioneer His 

tory of the Champlain Yalley," but has never before 

been ic print. 

Land Papers, Office of Secretary of State, Albany. 
Vol. 3i>, page 125. Dated /August 17th, 1785. 

Ajfidavit of Uchieii Hay in relation to EdwardTiaiiniond'fi 

title under William Gilliland to lands in Bessboronyh 

on the icest side of Lake Champlain. 

Udny Hay, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith 
that about the year one thousand seven hundred and 
seventy (1770) Edward Raymond was settled and Im- 
proving lands in Bessborough on the west side of Lake 
Champlain, about eight miles north of Crown Point and 
about three miles south of the Great West Bay, called 
the (here "Bay de Rocher Fendu" is struck out in the 
original) West Bay. That the said Edward Raymond 
had there built a Dwelling house and a saw and grist 
mill. That the said Edward Raymond informed the 
deponent either that he was a teuuant of or held under 
William Gilliland, who then lived on the west side of 
the Lake at a place called Willsborough. That this 
Deponent was also informed by the said William Gilli- 
land that the said Edward Raymond was a Tei*ant, or 
had purchased of him and Improved under him. 

And this Deponent further saith that the said Edward 
Raymond lived, cleared and cultivated land and Im- 
proved at the place above mentioned to have his resi- 
lience until the commencement of the late war, and 
until some time in the year 1776, and farther Deponent 
saith not- 

(Signed) LTdny Hay, 



120 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Sworn in New York the 17th of August, 1785, before 

W, Wilson, Alcl'r. 

This Udney Hay is the Colonel Hay whose name 
often appears in the printed volumes of the Public Pa- 
pers of George Clinton. He had known Gilliland well 
from the beginning of the colony on the Boquet, his 
home being in Montreal before the Revolution. 

We also find mention of a place called Raymond's 
Mills in two letters written from Lake Champlain in 
the summer of 1780, and described in detail on another 
page. That at least one house in this settlement stood 
until after the Revolution we know from a letter by 
Judge Charles Hatch, which he calls "a sketch of the 
early settlement of the county, but more particularly 
of the town of Westport." In it he says : 

"Still there was also a small improv meut four miles 
south of the present Westport village, commenced by a 
man by the name of Raiment, which was the only im- 
provement commenced before the Revolution in the 
present Westport. At the last mentioned place Rai- 
ment erected a small mill, but it all was demolished 
when I moved into this place, (1802) except a shattered 
old house wdiich was occupied by Benjamin Andrews." 

Of course "Raiment" stands for Raymond in the 
Judge's spelling, which had its eccentricities. Another 
confirmatory document is an old deed, made out in 
1807, endorsed on the outside, "Jared Pond to Ananias 
Rogers, Ore Bed, Raymond Farm <fe Mill Lot, N. W. 
Bay." Inside, wrapped up in a tangle of law terms, 
we find these words ; "Also that Tract of land com- 



HI STORY OF WESrrORT 121 

rnonly called tlie Raymond farm, now in possession of 
Benjamin Andrews, containing two hundred acres." 

The Gazetteer of the State of New York, published 
1860, says ; "A small settlement was begun, and a mill 
built in the south part of the town before the Revolu- 
tion." This modest and perfectly correct statement is 
transferred to the Essex County Histor^^ of 1885 in this 
form : "It is I'eportad that a mill was built and a small 
settlement begun in the south part of the village (.s'/r) 
prior to the Revolution, but all vestiges of these were 
obhterated during that fierce, internecine struggle." 
Perhaps we could have spared at least one of the ad^ 
jectives in exchange for a more careful investigation of 
facts. 

And last of all, there still survives on the soil itself a 
legend, told b}' the first settlers after the Revolutiou 
and preserved by their descendants, of one Raymond 
who once had a mill near the mouth of the brook and 
who was driven from his home by Indians, fleeing in a 
small boat with his wife ^ind child to the Yermont shore, 
while the savages burned his house, A grandson of 
James W. Coll, v/ho settled at the place in 1808, told 
me this tale before the afi5clavi4: of Udney Hay was sent 
me from Albany, and X have no doubt myself that the 
additional details contained iu this oral testimony ^re 
perfectly true. 

Thus ue have all the known facts about our earliest 
■.settlement, always such an interesting point in the his- 
tory of any town. We can imagine howRaj^mond built 
|)js log .cabin, tlien bis saw mill; and a little later the grist 



1-22 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

mill, unless as was often the case, both mills were housed 
uucler one roof. The mill stones and the saw must have 
been brought a long way perhaps in boats from New 
York, like the machinery for Gillilaud's mills on the 
Boquet. But who wanted the boards that Raymond 
sawed, and who brought corn and wheat for him to 
grind? Doubtless most of the produce of the 
mills was consumed in the settleuient itself, but 
all along both shores of the lake were settlers glad of 
these modern improvements. The gi'ist mill must have 
been especially welcome, since one can live in great 
comfort in a log house with a floor of hewed puncheons, 
but grinding corn by hand in an Indian mortar is very 
slow and laborious. This was no unpeopled wilder- 
ness, reckoning as an American frontiersman reckoned 
in 1770. And who were Raymond's nearest neighboi's? 
The family of John Ferris, living on the opposite shore 
of the lake, only three uiiles away, at the place which 
we now call Arnold's bay. Seven miles to the south 
was another mill on the lake shore, probably built at 
nearly the same time as Raymond's, and eight miles 
away, on the peninsula of Crown Point, lay the metrop- 
olis of the region, in the 'village near the fort. There 
was always a garrison of soldiers in the big barracks 
that Amherst built, and there had been a thriviug vil- 
lage on the shore of the bay, with cleared farm lands 
stretching away to the south, ever since the early days 
of French occupation. Although most of the French 
inhabitants, if not all, may have returned to Canada 
when the country was given up to the British, they 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 12:i 

had been gone but seven years, and most of the houses 
must have been left when Ila3nnond came, probably 
occupied by new settlers from the English colonies, 
Eighty years afterward, W. C. Watson retraced the line 
of the village street, with its door stones and cellars. 
There was a store, driving a brisk business with the 
soldiers and settlers. When supplies on the Boquet 
ran low, Gilliland had recourse to this store, and we 
may be sure that when Raymond wanted a new axe 
head, or Mistress Baymond had lost her darning needle, 
a small boat came out from the mouth of the Baymond 
l)rook and was rowed eight miles across blue water to 
the same place. 

So much for next-door neighbors, east and south. To 
the north, the nearest were Gilliland's settlers below^ 
Split Rock, twelve miles away. To the west, the bound- 
less continent, unexplored, full of wild beasts and sav- 
age men, the little settlement forming but a tiny notch 
cut out from the edge of a universe of unmeasured 
forest. 

So w^e can see how the Baymonds lived, with the 
people who gathered around them. The men worked 
in the mills, hunted and fished, wliile the women spun 
before the rude fireplaces and the children played along 
the shore. In six years of the existence of the little 
<*ommunity there must have been both births and 
deaths, and the dead were buried on the point which 
overlooks the island,, witli fiat stones set up at the head 
iind foot of each grave. Perhaps it was Raymond's 
settlers who called the island "Cherry Island," as it is 



1-24 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

,,,.,ed on tho >nap ,nade ia 1785. Au Euglish colony 
would hardly know the stovy of the o'-^-'- J-^J- 
Jo<.ues, more than a hundred years betore. Thus tl.ey 
p:nt five years in the rude and adventurous hfe ot 
Ltiersiu and their families, and then came a^.d 
den flash and upheaval at then- very ^^---J f ^^ 
of Ticonderoga and Crown Pent by Ethan Alien and 

""iStpf tht were men from Raymond's Mill, in 
a.e Sand that crossed the lake from S>--1-- «> 
Kconderoga that May moraing of 1775, crept >nto the 
J^T astthe startled sentioel, and gave the c ee.^u. 
front of the barracks which wakened Delaplace. F.n 
everal days before the attack, the Green Mountain 
;:; had searched the shores of the lake *-- ^kene - 
bor^ to Panton for boats in wh,ch to '-nspor he at 
tacking force, and Raymond may have sent bo men 
..d boats, or have joined in the enterpnse hnn.e 1. Or 
it may be that he stayed cautiously at hoa.e, and saw 
VIL out of his door, the two s.nall boats wlnc we 
sent by the British garrison at Crown Po mt, o 
ay to'canada the news of the loss of Fort T. ^ 
Z lent request for re.uforceme.ts. Down the lake 
L; vent with all speed, bat before they were out o 
the Narrows they were captured by that one ot the 
G,; n Mountain Boys who bore the unforgettable nam 
of Remember Baker. Lying in wait i"-^;;'- -- 
of Otter Creek, he came ,>ut just m tune 'o n^-ept 

them, and they and their ^^-l-^^'-V'-'V^ " f ' lend 
to swell the number of the captured and the general 



HTSTOKY OF WESTJ'O/rr /-•"' 

glory of the occasion. One can imagine their dis.i^ us t 
with the strutting and crowing Continentals, engaged 
about that time, according to Allen's own account, in 
"tossing about the flowing bowl." When Seth Warner 
came to take possession of Crown Point he found there 
a garrison of one sergeant and eleven men. Did 
Warner pull down the banner of England from the flag- 
staff, or did he leave it flying in obedience to that tre- 
mendous fiction which so solemnly maintained that the 
colonists were not resisting the king, but only fighting 
a little provisionally while seeking to learn more fully 
his good pleasure in certain disputed matters? 

The next thing for Raymond to see from his door was 
the schooner of Major Philip Skene sailing past with a 
good south breeze. Many a time had he seen her before, 
for she had made regular trips from Skenesboro to St. 
John's ever since Skene built her, but now Skenesboro 
was in the hands of the Continental soldiers, and the 
schooner was commanded by Benedict Arnold. Fol- 
lowing came a number of batteaux loaded with men, 
and commanded by Ethan Allen. Two or three days, 
and the schooner is seen again, sailing south, trium- 
phant convoy of a captured sloop and four batteaux, 
wliich Arnold had taken at St. John's the day before. 
Kow the colonists ruled the lake from end to end, and 
by this time Raymond must have declared himself for 
King or Congress. That he chose the latter seems 
most probable from the fact of his staying until the 
next year. A Tory miller living so near the fort would 
have been inclined to go away as soon as possible after 



126 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the,red-coate had given way to the Green Monutain 

^ Late in August of that summer, General Eichavd 
Montgomery left Ticonderoga with an army ot a thous- 
and nten, followed closely by his chief Major-Genera 
Schuyler. Both these men were familiar with Lake 
Champlain, from their service against the French lu 
the lait war. It was Philip Schuyler as will be le- 
membered, who dined in Button bay when he was with 
the Boundary Comuiissicm in 1766, and afterwards took 
tea with .the GiUilands at Milltown. H.s tnend Su 
Guy Carleton was still Governor of Canada but Schuy- 
ler would not dine with him unless one of them should 
be taken prisoner. This was that romantic, ^ --^trous 
invasion of Canada, the story of which is so ful of name, 
of men who afterward became famous, and wdi.cli is, as 
a whole, symbolized, for glory and for griet by the one 
name of Eichard Montgomery. On the last day ot 
the year, leading an unsuccessful attack on Quebec, he 
was killed, and there buried. After forty-three years 
his body was carried thr,.ugh the lake to Us last buual 

m New York. r 

Eaymond and Gilliland must have heard ot Mont- 
oomei-y-s death, of Arnold's wound, and of the army m 
Tvinte; quarters at Montreal. At the very beginning o 
the campaign Schuyler had been obliged to go back o 
Albany on account of sickness. All that winter the 
lake was full of messengers, troops sent as remtorce- 
,„ents. sick and furloughed men returning to th u 
homes, and all the bustle and confusion incident to the 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 127 

rear of an army of invasion. Snowslioes and sleclges 
served for the winter's travel, and when the ice broke up 
in the spring ahnost the first boats that went through 
carried the Commission of Congress to Canada. 

If Raymond stood in his door on the twenty-fourth 
of April, 177G, looking out upon the water, where cakes 
of ice still floated, grinding and crushing against the 
shore, he might have seen two boats go by, making 
their way northward. The boats were large and heav}^ 
thirty-six feet in length and eight feet wide, furnished 
with a rude square sail and rowed by armed men who 
wore a uniform of brown with buff facings. There were 
thirty to forty soldiers in each boat, and the whole 
formed an escort for four men, sent by Conoress to Can- 
ada to trv the temper of the Canadians and induce 
them, if possible, to join the thirteen colonies in rebel- 
lion against Great Britain. There were three Commis- 
sioners, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase aad Charles 
Carroll of CarroUton, accompanied b}^ John Carroll, a 
Jesuit priest, and afterward the first Roman Catholic 
Arch-bishop of the United States. They had had a weary 
journe}^ from Philadelphia, stopping for a welcome rest 
at the house of Philip Schnyler, and had now left Ti- 
ecmderoga at eleven o'clock, reaching Crown Point a 
little after three and stopping there to examine the 
defences. Charles Carroll wrote in his diar}' that they 
found them "in ruins," which seems very surprising 
when one considers that it was only seventeen years 
since Amherst built the fort and the barracks at great 
expense^ and in the most subst^iutial manner, but Car- 



1-28 HISTORY OF WESTP0B7' 

roll explains : "By some accideDt the fort took fiie, the 
flames commuincatecl to the powder magazine, contain- 
ing at that tiaie ninety-six barrels. The shock was so 
great as to throw down the barracks — at least the upper 
stories. The explosion was distinctly heard ten miles 
off, and the earth shook at that distance as if there had 
been an earthquake. This intelligence I received from 
one Faris, who lives teu miles down the lake, and at 
whose house we lay this night." 

Carroll came from Maryland, and was not familiar 
with New Enghind uames, but of course "Faris" means 
Ferris, who lived on the eastern shore, just opposite 
Raymond's Mills, having settled there the year preced- 
ing the cx)ming of Raymond. The explosion at the fort 
must have formed one of the most startliijg experiences 
of the Raymond settlement. 

If Raymond saw the boats of the Commissioners 
drawn up on the shore. at Ferris's, (we now call the 
place Arnold's bay,) and the part}' making preparations 
for camping for the night, he may have had the curi- 
osity to row across and obtain a nearer view of the 
strangers. xA.t five the next morning they were again on 
their way, but as they went through the Narrows 
there came up a gale from the north, and they 
were forced to stop at the house of one of Gilliland's 
colonists, on the present site of Essex. The Commis- 
sioners do not seem to have known of the existence of 
Gilliland, whose hospitality was so eageily extended to 
the Boundary Commission ten years before. 

Carroll's journal continues the account of the jonrnej 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 12!) 

to Montreal, which they reached April 29, being re- 
ceived by General Benedict Arnold, then in command, 
with much courtesy. On May 11 Carroll writes : "Dr. 
Franklin left Montreal to-day to go to St. John's, and 
from thence to Congress. The doctor's declining state 
of health, and the bad prospect of our affairs in Canada, 
made him take this resolution." A man of seventy 
years was indeed ill-fitted to endure the hardships of 
such a journey, in open boats and over rough roads, 
sleeping under the awning of the boat or a rude shelter 
of bushes in the raw winds of our northern April. 
Franklin was accompanied on his return by the Rev. 
John Carroll, the other two Commissioners remaining 
in Canada until they left it with the Continental army in 
full retreat, the last of May. They rowed all day and 
all night, passing Raymonds Mills the evening of the 
third of June. One month after, the army of Sullivan 
passed by, hastening to shelter m the fortifications at 
Crown Point. The next day Congress adopted tbe 
Declaration of Independence and three of the men who 
camped on the shore of the lake opposite Raymond's 
Mills that April night were Signers of that famous in- 
strument. 

Giliiland's settlement at Milltown had now had a 
prosperous existence of ten years. In this time there 
had gathered there a 'population of upwards of one 
hundred souls, with twenty-eight dwelling houses, fort}^ 
other buildings, two grist mills, two saw mills, and a 
large extent of cleared and cultivated land. All this 
the colonists were forced to abandon by the orders of 



130 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Sullivan, comn^ander of the ve Wing -"J-^-;f 
seconded by their own fears of the army of Ca. eton, 
;Hch was in close pursuit. GilliUnd buried the hea.j 
machinery of the mills in the woods, and taking hs 
Tamily and what furniture he was able to carry fled to 
cTown Point. Here the army was spread ou m one 
vast hospital. Sullivan remained there ten days and 
I nh 'moved on to the south he left behind h.m three 
hundred new made graves of soldiers who had d,ed o 
rall-pox. Shelter for army or for fugitives there was 
none This was a scene for a man- to enter with a fam- 
Tof motherless little children,-for GUh and s wife 
had died before this time. The oldest of the children 
las Elizabeth, now twelve years old. Her gi-andmotl^- 
er and the household slaves had the care o the fam I3 • 
So little Bess looked once more upon Bes'sboro. as they 
hurried up the lake in confusion and distress. 

GilHlai sold his cattle and crops to Snl hvan s army, 
which stood in sore need of milk, beef and vegetabtes^ 
The commissary was that Major Hay who alterwaid 
gave his affidavit in regard to GmUands ownership o 
Bessboro. Gilliland complained most bitterly that he 
Preheated in the price of his cattle, and robbed and 
plundered by the soldiers of Arnold, When he la c 
these complaints before Gates, the Commander-,n-Chiet 
Arnold's defense was a contemptuous denial and a 
fharge that Gilliland was at heart a loyalist, and g^l y 
of attempts to convey information to the enemy. Gl- 
liland," said he,"is a most plausible and ar t ul via 
In the light of subsequent history, it woul.l seem that 



: HISTORY OF WESTPORT 181 

Aruolcl might have been a good judge of that kind of 
thing, but there is no real evidence that Gilhland was 
ever inclined to play such a part. It is probably true 
that he called Arnold and his men "a parcel of damned 
robbers," as one witness gave evidence, but we shall 
not find it difficult to forgive him for that. 

Gillilaud seems to have taken his family to Albany 
in the wake of the army, and did not return to Lake 
Champlain until after peace was proclaimed. In all 
this w^e bave no hint of how things went with Raymond 
and his settlement. He was, of course, in a much safer 
position than the settlers of Milltown, being able to 
reach the fort in a short time after an alarm should be 
given. It would seem that it might liave been profita- 
ble for him to keep his mills going while the soldiers 
were at the fort. There was no shelter theie for such 
an army, and the boards from the saw-mill would fur- 
nish material for rude huts, while the grist-mill would 
grind corn to feed the men. Well they knew that 
Carleton w^as straining ever}^ nerve to follow the re- 
treating army, but absolute safety was nowhere, and 
the miller was not timid, — timid men did not under- 
take to settle on Lake Champlain before the Revolu- 
tion. 

After the patriot army left Crown Point, the soldiers 
stationed there were active in the building of the little 
fleet of Benedict Arnold. If Raymond went often to 
the fort, he saw there the galleys and gondolas building 
in Bulvvagga bay, while others were fashioned at Skenes- 
borough and Ti, all under the restless, driving domina- 



132 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

tion of the ruling spirit of tliese northern waters,x4.rnold 
himself. The w^hole summer was spent in ship-building, 
Arnold at the southern end of the lake, Carleton at the 
northern. In October both were ready to fight. On 
the eleventh they came together, fighting a fierce naval 
battle near Valcour, in which Carleton gained all the 
advantage and Arnold all the glory, from the fact that 
Arnold was fighting an enemy twice his size and more 
than holding his own. On the morning after the battle, 
before daylight, Arnold slipped away, silently and suc- 
cessfulh% favored by his own knowledge of the lake, 
and fine spirit of his men, and their perfect and intelli- 
gent discipline. Not until they were well out of his 
reach did Carleton discover their escape, and he gave 
chase at once. Winds were adverse, and it was not 
until the thirteenth that the running fight between pur- 
suer and pursued reached Split Rock and the waters of 
Westport. Arnold was intent upon escaping to the 
protection of the guns at Crown Point, and Carleton 
was eager to bring him to another engagement in which 
the great superiority of the British fleet in ships, in 
men, in guns and in previous drill might be brought 
fully to bear and effect a decisive victory. For "five 
glasses," says Arnold's report, (tw^o hours and a half,) 
the fight went on in the upper Narrows and in North- 
west Ba}'. Arnold's fleet had numbered fifteen vessels. 
His best ship, the Royal Savage, was lost in the first 
day's fight. The schooner Revenge and the sloop En~ 
terjjrise, with the galley TrtanhuU, escaped to Crown 
Point, while the galley JVashiugfon was taken near Split 



HISTORY OF WESTPOKT i.V.V 

Rock. Otliev galleys and gondolas had been sunk or 
disabled, until Arnold's galley, the Congress, with four 
gondolas, carried on the fight with Carleton's Inflexi-^ 
hie and his two schooners, the Maria and the Carlefon. 

In the picture which we may conjure up of the naval 
battle in Northwest bay, Oct. 13, 1776, the most con- 
spicuous object is the Infexihle, catching the light on 
her cloud of canvass as she makes long tacks between 
the shores, attempting to bring her cannon to bear on 
Arnold's boats, but constantly baffled by a breeze from 
the south. She was ship-rigged, with three masts, the 
largest vessel then afloat on inland waters, carrying a 
battery of eighteen twelve-pininders, and quite able to 
blow Arnold's rude little flotilla out of the water with 
two broadsides, if she could but come within range. 
Then there was the Carleton, a schooner with two masts 
carrying twelve six-pounders, and now showing in hull 
and rigging many marksof thecannonading of two days 
before. The Maria, (named after the wife of Gen. Carle- 
ton,) was somewhat larger, with an armament of fourteen 
six-pounders, and upon her forward deck stood Captain 
Pringle, commanding the fleet under the observation of 
Gen. Sir Guy Carleton himself, with Baron Eiedesel an 
interested observer of the engagement. 

Opposed to these three vessels see Arnold in the 
Congress, simply a large open boat, with rowers ranged 
^irouud the sides, plying heavy oars, since the one square 
sail was of no use with the wind ahead. In the bow 
were mounted two cannon, an eighteen pounder and a 
twelve pounder, in the stern two nines and ou theside?? 



134 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

six sixes. The Congress was built to carry eighty men, 
and ooe^fourth of her crew were killed. The four gon- 
dolas were smaller than the Congress, each built to 
carry forty-five men, with one twelve-pounder and two 
sixes. 

The cliffs of the Narrows and of North Shore echoed 
the roar of cannon, and the whole lake knew that the 
end of the battle drew near. Perhaps there were men 
from Raymond's Mills fighting in Arnold's flotilla, and 
perhaps there were women left at home who crept out 
to the end of the point to watch, or boys too young to 
fight who stole out in a skiff upon the water in sight of 
the ships. The end came when Arnold, about two 
o'clock in the afternoon, seeing that the attempt to 
reach Crown Point was hopeless, ran his five boats 
ashore in the little shallow bay opposite Barber's Point, 
his rowers pulling to windward out of reach of the 
enemy's guns. Then the boats were set on fire, with 
every flag flying, and Arnold's men stood on the clay 
bank, keeping off the small boats from the fleet with 
musketry fire until the Congress and the four gondolas 
were burned past all capture.* Then they retreated to 

*The flags were like the one first raised by Washington at Cambridge in Janu- 
ary of the same year, bearing the thirteen red and white stripes for the thirteen, 
colonies, with the union of England, a red cross over a white one on a " field of 
blue, instead of the stars which we now use. I have not been able to determine 
exactly the names of the four gondolas whose charred timbers now lie on the bot- 
tom of Arnold's bay, but they were four out of these six: The New York, Capt. 
Reed, the Providence, Capt. Simonds, the New Haven, Capt. Mansfield, the Spit- 
fire, Capt. Ulmer, the Boston, Capt. Sumner, and the Connecticut, CapS. Grant. It 
is one of our local legends that one of Arnold's boats hid in Partridge Harbor- 
after his fight wjih Carleton. If there is any truth in this, it must have been the 
rQw galley L,^e, Capt. Da,vis. It is said in Gen, Riedesel's Memoirs that this gaU 



HISTORY OF WESTPURT ISo 

Crown Poiut througli the woods, followed by Indians 
who had been sent by laud up the hike, and signaled 
for boats to take them over to the fort. Crown Point 
was at once abandoned, the Continentals falling back 
to Ti, and the next day Carleton's fleet came sailing up 
and occupied Crown Point. t 

And how fared Edward Raymond in all this stirring 
business ? We know that he left his settlement in this 
same year, and the local legend says that he was driven 
away by Indians, escaping to the opposite shore in a 
small boat with his wife and child, while his house was 
burning. Thus it would seem almost certain that the 
savages attached to Carleton's army descended upon 
Raymond's Mills and desolated the place. If this be 
true, Raymond suffered for the patriot cause, and his 
fortunes fell with the defeat of Arnold. Since Crown 
Point liad just been occupied by the British, he could 
not flee to the protection of the fort, and his only ave- 
nue of escape lay by way of the eastern shore. Per- 
haps his neighbor Ferris took him in that night, if 
Ferris had had the hardihood to remain in his house, 
and the good fortune to escape destruction. 

ley "was found a few days later in a bay, abandoned by the crew." The men 
might have made their way throug-h the woods to Ti, eluding the Indians who 
had been sent up both sides of the lake by Carleton. 

tThe most exhaustive and complete account of the battle between Carleton and 
Arnold is given in an article by Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N,, in Scnbner's 
Magazine for February, 189S This article is finely illustrated, and a set of the 
illustrations has been framed in wood taken from the wrecks of Arnold's boats. 
The frames were made for Miss Anna Lee by Mr. J. N. Barton, who had secured 
at different times several pieces of wood from the wrecks. The remains of the 
vessels still show plainly at low water, though little is left, of course, but some of 
the keel timbers sunk in the roud. 



ise mSTORT OF WESTPORT 

An officer in Carleton's army, Lieut, Digby, kept a 
diary, in which he entered his impressions of the cam- 
pain and the country. "Crown Point," he says, '4s a re- 
markable fine plain, an uncommon sight to us after be- 
ing so long buried in such boundless woods, where our 
camp formed a grand appearance." He speaks of flocks 
of pigeons, ^'thick enough to darken the air, also large 
eagles," and of "herds of deer all along the shore 
side, which were seldom disturbed, the country being 
but little altered since Us first state of nature, except 
now and then a wandering party of savages coming 
there to hunt for their sustenance," He mentions sev- 
eral families living near the fort who still remained loyal 
to the king, and who had suffei^ed much in consequence 
from the Continental soldiers. When Carleton and his 
fleet returned to Canada, before the first of November, 
leaving the lak© to the colonials for the v/inter, these 
families chose to go, too^ leaving the western shore more 
utterl}' deserted than it had been since the first settle-. 
ments of the Freuch, 

The next June Sir John Burgoyne came up the lake 
with his splendid fieet, carrying over seven thousand 
men, the largest army which ever passed Westport land^ 
and by far the most brilliant and imposing sight ever 
visible from these shores. Burgoyne arrived at his 
camp at the mouth of the Bocjuet river June 2.1, 1777, 
his advance guard being already there, and for a week 
afterward the fair fields of Willsboro were overspread 
■\vith the white tents of his soldiery. Here he heki 
u great council of war with the Ind.ia.ii allies of Great 



HISTORY OF wEsrroirr 1:^7 

I Britaiu, aud here lie first issued the proclamation which 
was called "the Boquet order," addressed to the rebel- 
ions colonists, offering peace and pardon to all who 
would return to their allegiance to the king, and threat- 
ening all others with every terror of Indian warfare. 
This proclamation passed unheeded over the deserted 
hamlet of Raymond's Mills, where the wind swept the 
ashes over the cold hearthstones, and the squirrels 
leaped and chattered through the silent mills. Gilli- 
laud's settlement was also deserted at this time, and I 
suppose there was not a single rebellious colonist on 
this western shore north of Crown Point. 

xln e^^e-witness on board one of the ships, Thomas 
Anburey, describes the advance of the fleet, on a day 
"remarkably fine and clear, not a breeze stirring," as 
"the most complete and splendid regatta you can pos- 
sibly conceive. In the front the Indians went with 
their birch canoes, containing twenty or thirty each ; 
then the advance corps (Frazer's) in regular line with 
the gunboats ; then followed the Prnjal George and the 
Inffexible, towing large booms, with the two brigs aud 
sloops following; after them Generals Burgoyne, Phil- 
lips and Riedesel in their pinnaces; next to them the 
second battalion, and the rear was brought up with the 
suttlers and followers of the army." 

The Rrji/cd George was a fine new ship, built for this 
campaign the winter before, and fitted to carry twenty- 
four guns. The Inflexible, the Ccirleton and the 3Iarin 
•B".e have seen before in Northwest Bay, aud again the 



138 HISTORY OF WESTPOKT 

Maria has the distinction of carrying the officer highest 
in rank, the gay uniforms of Burgoyne and his staff 
showing vividly uuder the white sails. The sun shone 
bright on musket and bayonet, brass buttons, gold lace, 
plumes and scarlet cloth, with floating banners and 
pennons, the shining guns of the artillery, and the pol- 
ished instruments of a band playing the most inspiring 
martial airs. Somewhere in all this glittering pageant 
went two heavy, rough-built vessels, the row-galley 
IVashuu/fon and the gondola Jerset/ captured in the 
tight between Carle ton and Arnold the year before. 
Their names seem to have remained unchanged, like 
that of the Royal Savage, which was built and named 
by the British, taken at St. John's by Montgomery, and 
used by Arnold as his flag-ship in the battle of Valcour. 

On the night of the 25t;h of June tlie German battal- 
ion under Riedesel made its camp at Button Bay, We 
read in his memoirs : 'The weather was delightful, and 
we reached Bottom bay the same night. On the day 
following, (the 26th,) the army arrived at nine o'clock 
in the morning at Crown Point." ''Bottom bay," of 
course, is a miss-reading (3f Gen. Kiedesel's notes by his 
biographer, — possibly a mistake of his translator. 

Gen. Kiedesel's biographer says: "Fifteen hundred 
horses had been purchased in Canada for the army. 
They were to be sent to Crown Point by land." And 
Palmer says, in his History of Lake Champlain : "Seven 
hundred carts were brought on with the armj^ to be 
used in transporting baggage and provisions across the 
portages between the lakes and the Hudson river, and 



HISTORY OF WEST/'Oirr 7:^0 

fifteen hundred Canadian horses were sent by land up 
the west side of the lake, under a strong escort." Mr. 
David Turner, editor of a Westport newspaper in the 
forties, waswout to claim that this wagon traiu passed 
through Westport, and camped one night on the hill 
north of the village, now known as "Almon Allen's hill." 
Burgoyne's orderly books and the published diaries of 
two of his officers give no hint of horses brought from 
Canada in any way except by water. 

This German Baron Riedesel is one of the most in- 
teresting figures in the army of Burgoyne, parth^ on 
his own account, and partly because of his beautiful 
wife, who followed him from Germany to the wilds of 
America with three little children. She reached Que- 
bec on the 11th of June, after her husband had started 
M'ith the army. They had two blissful daj^s together, 
and then were obliged to part, he to his militar}- duty, 
and she to remain in Canada until his return from the 
campaign. Then it happened, precise!}' as it might 
have happened in a novel, that at the battle of Hub- 
bardton, July 7th, a certain Major Ackland was badly 
wounded. His wife, Lady Harriet Ackland, had also 
followed her husband to America, and was then in 
Montreal. Hearing of her husband's wound, she started 
at once to join him. When she arrived, and the story 
was known, the whole arm}' went wild with admiration. 
A beautiful young woman of rank, the daughter of an 
earl, passionately devoted to a brutal husband, thread- 
ing her way through forest and hike for love of him,— 
it was all pitched to the high, cjnixotic level of the 



140 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

drama that Burgoyne and his men were playing. Gen 
Burgoyne knew of Riedesel's wife staying in Canada, 
(like a sensible woman as she was,) and he said to him, 
"General, you shall have your wife here also!" So the 
Baroness was sent for, and we may add her name to the 
list of famous people who passed in sight of Westport, — 
and never a sweeter, more womanly soul looked out 
upoD it. She was accompanied by two maids and her 
three children, six year old Gustava, Frederica, and the 
baby Caroline. In her diary she does not describe 
her journey through the lake with much detail, but 
says : "During the night we had a thunder storm,which 
appeared to us more terrible, as it seemed as if we were 
lying in the bottom of a caldron surrounded by mount- 
ains and great trees. The following day we passed 
Ticonderoga." Were they storm-bound that night in 
our bay, close under North Shore, with the thunder re- 
verberating from the cliffs '? They seem to have slept 
on board the boat for fear of the rattlesnakes on shore. 

When the army of Burgoyne surrendered at Sara- 
toga, the Baroness and her children were tiiken charge 
of by Philip Schuyler, and how prettily she tells the 
story of his taking the babies in his arms and kissing 
them, to the infinite reass^urance of the mother's heart. 
They were lodged in the Schuyler mansion, and treated 
with the most distinguished consideration. 

The Gilldand children, were In Albany at this time 
also, in the care of their grandmother. They had fallen 
upon evil times, tor their father was in prison upon a 
charge of treason, and their slaves had run away. Our 



HISTORY OF WES r PORT 141 

Elizabeth was then a girl of thirteen, the oklest of a 
family of five. They may have seen the little German 
children whose father wa^ a prisoner too, coming ont 
of the door of the Schuyler house, or riding out witli 
their mother in the grand Schu^der coach. 

As the army of Burgoyne passed through Northwest 
bay, spreading out its ranks upon the water as it 
emerged from the Narrows, only one man in all the 
fleet looked upon these shores with eyes of pc^ssession 
and familiar acquaintance, and that was Major Philij) 
Skene, who had received from the king six jears before 
the patent which still bears his name, and upon which 
part of the village of Westport now stands. In those 
six years he had done much and traveled far, seeing 
many a coast with which he could contrast the stretch 
of wooded shore, unbroken, desolate, washed by waters 
which reflected every leaf and stone with double bril- 
liancy that still June day. As he gazed he must have 
thought of his work at Skenesboro, where he had 
built mills and forges and ships, and perhaps he planned 
to do the same in Northwest bay when this campaign 
should be over, and the king's authority acknowledged 
without dispute on all the continent. His mind must 
have been full of his settlement at the end of the lake, 
toward which the army was hastening, for he had not 
seen it since its capture by the Green Mountain Boys, 
more than two years before. At the tinie of that event 
he was in England, leaving his son Andrew in charge of 
the colony. He returned from England with two tine 
new things. One was a wife with a fortune of forty 



14 J HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

thousand pouDds, (he having been a handsome and 
well-connected widower,) and the other w^as a resplen- 
dent title, — "Lieutenant-Governor of Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, and Surveyor of His Majesty's Woods 
and Forests bordering on Lake Champlain." As he 
stepped off the ship at Philadelphia he was arrested by 
the authority of Congress, and was kept a prisoner for 
more than a year. One can imagine the consternation 
of the bride at such an ending to her wedding trip. 
Now he had been exchanged, had been to England 
again, joined the army of Burgoyne, and found himself 
once more on the famihar waters of Lake Champlain. 
Within a few days he was at Skenesboro again, the army 
having swept the Continentals out of its path in ruin 
and rout. He showed Burgoyne his colony, or what 
remained of it, and told him all his plans for the gov- 
ernment of the Champlain valley. It has been said, by 
the way, that his acquaintance with Gilliland was inti- 
mate, and that he meant to make him his viceroy when 
he himself should become Goveruoi'. If this be true, 
it may serve to explain something of the mysterious im- 
prisonment of Gilliland in Albany at this time, whic!) 
has been hitherto attributed entirely to the malicious 
persecution of Arnold, between whom and Gilliland, we 
know, there existed the bitterest hatred. A man who 
had reason to expect an appointment of such import- 
ance from the crown may well have been suspected of 
sympathy with the royalists. But whatever the truth 
may be, we lost all chance of ever finding it out when 
Governor Skene, with the rest of the army, surrendered 



HISTORV OF WE ST PORT 14:i 

at Saratoga. He iosisted to the last, with true Scotch 
tenacity, that the couuti\y people of the lakes were loyal 
at heart, and onh^ wanted the chance to flock to the 
standard of the kin^^. He never saw Skenesboro, or 
his ore bed, or his patent at Northwest bay again, and 
all his property was promptly confiscated b}^ Congress 
as soon as peace was declared. 

Late in September the forces of St. Leger, having 
failed to make a junction with Burgoyne b}' way^of the 
Mohawk river, followed him through Lake Cbamplain. 
When Barg03^ne surrendered October 17, 1777, the 
news soon reached Ticonderoga, and the British garri- 
son which had been left there hastily dismantled the 
works and took to the boats, intent upon escaping to 
Canada, Before they were half way down the lake, 
Captain Ebenezer Allen (of the tribe of Ethan) came 
out upon them with a party of Green Mountain Boys 
and cut ofit' the rear division, capturing fifty men and a 
large cpiantity of baggage and military stores. 

Although after this year the lake was the scene of 
no great national event, it was none the less full of 
picturesque scenes. The forts were not occupied by 
either power, and the lake was one great Debatable 
Ground, witli the British ships passing up and down at 
will, while small parties of Green Mountain Boys ranged 
along the shores, keeping close watch of every move- 
ment. Red-coated soldier and blanketed savage, some- 
times both wearing belts from wiiich dangled fresh 
scalps, went b}' northward in boats or on the ice, drag- 
ging with them captives from the border settlements, 



144 HISTORY OF WESTP0R2 

and there are tales of these captives escapia^^ ancl flee- 
iug southward over the same trails. The Johnsons and 
the Butlers from the valley of the Mohawk made this 
their pathway, and the face of Joseph Brandt, adorned 
with war-paint and with eagle's plumes, looked more 
than once upon the place where a descendant of his 
own, not sixty years after, stood in a Christian pulpit 
and preached peace and piety with benevolent zeal.* 

In May of 1780 came Sir John Johnson, at the head 
of his Koyal Greens and his Indian allies, five hundred 
in number, on their way to visit the Mohawk valley 
once more with fire and blood. At Crown Point they 
disembarked from the ships which had brought them 
up the lake, and took to the woods, following a well- 
known trail to Johnstown. Turning instantly when 
their blow had been struck, they began their retreat the 
2ord of May, taking with them both prisoners antl 
plunder. Gov. Clinton himself followed them in close 
pursuit, going by way of Saratoga and Lake George, 
hoping to cut them otf before the}^ reached Lake Cham- 
plain, but they gained their ships almost under the eyes 
of his scouts. He wrote to General Howe : "I with 
great Difliculty got on a Force superior to Sir John's 
Party, but was not able to head him or gain his place 
of Embarkation (Bullwagers Bay) until about Six Hours 
after he left it." All that was left for the baffled Con- 
tinentals was to keep scouts on and about the lake all 
summer, with orders to report every movement of the 

*Rev. Thomas Brandt, a lineal descendant of Joseph Brandt, preached in the 
Baptist church of VVestport for six years,, in the forties. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 24d 

enemy. In command of one of these parties was Major 
Ebenezer Allen, (the same who captured a part of the 
retreating garrison of Ti after Saratoga) and on July 1, 
1780, he wrote to headquarters as follows : 

"Sir, I received intelligence by a Scout last Evening 
which came from Lake Champlain, that they saw two 
large Ships lying near Crown Point last Sunday- at 12 
o'clock, and two Tenders. The two Large Vessels had 
about ten Batteaux to each of their Sterns. The next 
Day they saw one of the Ships and one Tender sail 
down toward St. Johns, the other fell down as far as 
Raymonds Mills, tbere cast Anchor; Also a large mast 
Boat went to the Shore and landed a Number of Men 
and made Fires." 

So we see that Raymond's Mills was a place still 
well known, although Raymond himself had been gone 
four years, and we suppose the settlement to have been 
deserted. The two large ships may haVe been the 
Royal George and the Ltfexlhle, and it is probable that 
the whole flotilla had just returned from taking Sir 
John and his forces to St. John's, with their wretched 
prisoners. Some of the men brought with them their 
own wives and children and slaves, hitherto left in the 
enemy's country, and forty of the Roj^al Greens carried 
knapsacks packed with the Johnson plate, which had 
been baried on the flight of the family at the beginning 
of the war. 

In October the scouts reported the whole British 
fleet moving up the lake, eight large vessels, twenty-six 
flat-boats and more than a thousand men, commanded 



146 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

by Major Carleton (nephew of Sir Guy). This was iu 
protection of Sir John Johnson, again ravaging upon the 
Mohawk. The keen eyes of the scouts of Clinton 
peered out at the king's ships from many an unsus- 
pected thicket, and stole along the shore in skiffs like 
the Rangers of a generation before. Col. Alexander 
Webster, writing to Gov. Clinton Oct. 24, 1780, says 
that the scouts "moved from thence to Bullwagga and 
Grog bays, Rayment's Mills and its vicinity. The last 
scout informs that they reconnoitered those bays and 
other parts of the lake from the Beautiful Elm in Pan- 
ton." 

The movements of the British upon the lake caused 
grave concern amoi:g the Continental forces to the 
south, greatly increased by the suspicion that Vermont 
was listening to overtures from commissioners of the 
crown. All the next summer the fleet sailed up and 
down the labe, sometimes making alarming feints, but 
in reality doing very little damage. If the diplomacy 
of the Vermont leaders served to protect the Grants 
from the incursions of the enemy, the deserted condi- 
tion of the western shore, as well as the mountain 
barriers, operated to the same end. Lieut. Hadden, one 
of Burgoyne's officers, wrote in his journal when he 
came through the lake, "It may not be improper to 
remark that there are but very few settlements on the 
lake, not 20, and those only single Houses," and settle- 
ment upon the frontier of course ceased entirely dur- 
ing the war. 

In October of 1781 an express arrived from the south 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 147 

to General St. Leger at Ticouderoga, bearing the intel- 
ligence of the snrrender of Cornwallis. Instantly he 
embarked his men and stores and sailed away to Can- 
ada, and for the last time ships flying the banner of 
England sailed past our shores. 

Late in July of L783, while the treaty between Great 
Britain and the United States was still pending, Gen. 
George Washington made a northern tour, visiting Ti- 
conderoga and Crown Point, accompanied by Gov. 
George Clinton and some of his generals. "I could not 
help," he says, "taking a more contemplative and ex- 
tensive view of the vast inland navigation of these 
United States." And so he stood upon the ramparts 
of Crown Point, with Clinton at his side, and looked 
away down the beautiful lake upon the outline of our 
Coon mountain and North Shore, with the glittering 
blue of the Narrows, through which Arnold's ships came 
so gallantly seven years before. He saw the shore 
where lay the burning Congress, and he thought with 
agony that if one shot had found the heart of the leader 
on that day, the Vulture would never have dropped 
down the Hudson in another October with a traitor on 
board. And writing to a friend upon his return, in al- 
lusion to this trip, he says that he "could not but be 
struck with the goodness of that Providence which has 
dealt her favours to us with so profuse a hand. Would 
to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them." 
With these wise and reverent words closes for us the 
last scene of the Revolatiou. 



£fj> 



tk 'jMP 





X ^lo'-^m 



4 



&m. 



/S.'^o 



% 



^ 

^ 

^ 



A 



/S-60 



4^ 



2/0 



15 GO 

\ 



A 



% 



> 



f 



pj^ 



i 




HIqI) Q^ SKe^ve's VaUnl, 










JCXXS>r«vAe ^i^ t „ 



150 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

V. 
Original Patents. 

The territory of Westport contaios twelve patents 
and two tracts. The township is divided by an east- 
and-west line into two nearly equal parts. This line 
runs west from a point on the lake shore just north of 
the mouth of the Hoisington brook to the western 
boundary of the town. South of this line lie the Iron 
Ore Tract, and the patents of Skene, Woolsey and 
Gilliland. North of it lie two patents of Jonas Morgan, 
two of Piatt Rogers, the patents of Daniel McCormick, 
of John Livingston, [alias Kelly and De Lancey, alias 
Taylor and Kimball,) and of Rob Lewis, and the Split 
Rock Tract. These tracts and patents are shown in 
the Atlas of Essex County, 1876, where their outlines 
have been verified by consulting many an old map of 
the first surveyors. 

BESSBORO. Two thousand three hundred acres. 
First survey, June, 1764 ; first grant, February, 1765, 
from the crown to William Gilliland. Second survey, 
September, 1786 ; granted by the State of New York 
to William Gilliland. This patent was not only the one 
first surveyed and granted, but the one first settled, both 
temporarily and permanentl3\ It lies on the south- 
eastern boi'der of the town, between the lake and the 
mountains. 

SKENE'S PxlTENT. Two thousand four hundred 
acres, granted to Major Philip Skene "pursuant to a 
Warrant from His Excellency the Right Honorable 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT lol 

John, Earl of Dunmore, etc., bearing date the 19th 
(lay of Jane, 1771." It had been surveyed by Simon 
Metcalfe, Deputy of Alexander Golden, and lay directly 
north of Bessboro, extending northward along the shore 
to the head of the bay. The field notes describe it as 
lying "about three miles to the south of the Narrows." 
There are two ancient maps showing this patent. One 
is in the office of the Secretary of State in Albany, out- 
lining the shores of Lake Champlain from Crown Point 
to Northwest bay, and showing by red lines two pat- 
ents granted to Philip Skene, a larger and a smaller, 
the larger being the one already described. The smaller 
patent is called "Skene's Ore Bed Patent," and covers 
the ore beds on the lake shore now in the town of Mo- 
riah, but belonging to Westport until 1849. It contains 
six hundred acres, and its survey line beoan "at a Tree 
marked with the letters W. G., standing on the West 
Bank of the said Lake on the South side of the Mouth 
of a small Brook where it vents itself into Lake Cham- 
plain, commonly called Beaver Brook." Tliis seems to 
mean our Mullein brook, and the tree was doubtless 
marked by Gilliland with his initials when Bessboro 
was surveyed in 1764. A copy of this map is owned 
by the Westport Circulating Library. 

The second map of Skene's larger patent has been 
preserved by the descenchmts of the surveyor who drew 
it, and a copy of it is here given. It shows the first 
division of the patent into lots, and we call it the "Piatt 
Bogers map" because we believe that it was drawn by 
him. The work upon the original is very fine, and- 



lo2 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

could not be adequately reproduced upon the accom- 
panying plate. The patents are outlined with red and 
yellow shading, and the little pictures are done in sepia 
and water color, with the names written with a fine 
quill pen. The fish, the ship, the deer, the Indian and 
the bear are recognizable at a glance, but it is open to 
doubt whether the animal near the ponds is a beaver, 
and that on the lake shore a wolf or a lynx. The lots 
are numbered from one to sixteen, and marked with 
the names of the owners : Melancton Smith, Zephaniah 
Piatt, Nathaniel Piatt, George Freligh, Phitt Rogers, 
William Thorn, Stephen Aikins and Simon R. Reeve. 
(Lots No. 4 and 15 are marked as having been sold to 
John Halstead.) These eight names of the original 
owners give us the key to the history of the map, since 
we know that five out of the eight were among the 
"twelve patriarchs" of Plattsburgh. Melancton Smith, 
Zephaniah Piatt, Nathauiel Pratt, Piatt Rogers and Si- 
mon R. Reeve met with seven other men of property and 
influence at the house of Zephaniah Piatt in Poughkeep- 
sie, December 30, 1784, and there planned the future city 
at the mouth of the Sarauac. Zephaniah Piatt and Me- 
lancton Smith were both members of the Provincial 
Congress of New York in 1775, were distinguished by 
their patriotic activity throughout the Revolution, and 
were chosen members of the Constitutional Convention 
of 1778. After the war was over these men, with oth- 
ers, formed a large laud company for the purchase of 
military grants on Lake Champlaiu, and obtained pos- 
session of both the larger and the smaller patents of 



HISTORY OF WKSTJ^Oirr IdH 

Philip Skene, confiscated by the state under the attain- 
der of Andrew and FhiHp Skene. These patents seem 
eventually to have passed into the hands of Piatt 
Eogers. 

This is the earliest map indicating individual owner- 
ship of our soil, with the exception of the map of Bess- 
boro, which is a mere outline. It gives our shore Hue 
from the head of the bay, a little north of the village, 
southward to Coil's bay and the island, showing also 
the northern part of Bessboro, with three buildings at 
the mouth of the brook, exactly where Raymond's Mills 
stood before the Revolution. Two dwelling houses are 
drawn as if from actual observation, one with one 
chimney and the other with two, and the mill is marked 
"Osgood's Mill." No other trace than this have I been 
able to discover of any man named Osgood in our his- 
tory, although he ought probably to be recorded as our 
first settler after the Revolution. The trail from this 
settlement to the place where the village now stands, in- 
dicated by a dotted line, is very interesting, as showing 
the first path worn b}- human foot within our borders. 
It must have followed blazed trees through a thick for- 
est, aud ran between the present "lake road" and "mid- 
dle road" for most of the way. Perhaps the island was 
named from an abundance of wild cherry trees upon it, 
blooming like fairyland every spring. 

T)ie date of the map has been assumed to be 1785, 
although it ma}^ have been drawn the year before. 
That it cannot have been made later we infer from the 
fact that Hezekiah Barber erected permanent ])uildings 



J-'^4 HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 

;tt the einl i)f Barbel's ])t)iiit in the spring of 1786. If 
these buikliijos had been standiup; when the map was 
made, the map-maker would certainly have put them 
in, since the map was used principally to show to 
would-be settlers, whom the proprietors were trying to 
induce to buy lots, and the more thickly settled the 
<-()nntry could be made to appear, the more attractive it 
would surely be."' 

AVOOLSEY^S PATENT. Six hundred acres, lying 
west of Skene's patent, and now traversed by the high- 
way and the railroad. On the map it is shown as cov- 
ering two large ponds, but this is a mistake of the sur- 
veyors, who cannot have drawn it from actual survey. 
This patent behmged to Melancton Lloyd Wool- 
sey, who served as an otticer in the Revolution, and 
was aid to dox. Clinton. His family came from Long- 
Island, like the Platts, with whom they were connected, 



* The history of this map is rather curious. It descended from Piatt Rogers to j|_ 
hir, son, Ananias Rogers, and then to his grandson, Piatt Rogers Halstead. After 
the deathof the lattf-r in 1S49, the "^*P '^^'^^ kept among the papers of his sister, 
Mrs. Miles M'F. bawyer. Its practical use was by this time superseded, but it 
was triasured by the familv as a relic. Upon the death of Mrs. Sawyer, in 1S70, it 
passed into the possession of her oldest son, Piatt Rogers Halstead Sawyer, of 
Bedford, N. Y . He died in 18S5, and the family soon after moved to Chicago. In 
I S99, when engaged in the preparation of a genealogical record, the writer found 
that the map was still carefully kept in the family, and was afterward favored by 
the loan of it ♦rom Lea Halstead Sawyer, the great-great-grandson of the maker. 

An attempt was made to have the map photographed, but it was so creased into 
f. Ids that the result was entirely unsatisfactory. Then the plan was adopted ofi 
having an exact copy m ide by hand, and the copy photographed. We were fortu-. 
nate in finding a resident of Wcstport who was able to copy the map with the most 
exquisite tidelity, reproducing it exactly as it must have appeared when the sur- 
veyor lifted his hand from his last stroke upon it. This copy was bought by Missfj 
Ah'^e Lee and presented to the village library, and a photograph of it was used for j 
the copy given in this book. All the work was done by Mr. Clarence Underwood, 
phc iographt:r at Wadhams Mills. 



HISTORY OF WESrrORT ir^ry 

and he was promiuent among the early citizens of 
Plattsburgh, living to fight manfully in the war of 1812 
as a Veteran Exempt. His son, Lt. Melancton Taylor 
Woolse}', became distinguished iu the same war. One 
cannot help remarking upon the name Melancton. oc- 
curring with such unusual frequency in the early part of 
our history. The gentle Philip Melanchthon, who tem- 
pered the fierceness of Martin Luther's reforming zeal, 
must have been a favorite historical character in the 
generation preceding the Revolution. 

LIVINGSTON PATENT. Upon a map in the of- 
fice of the State Engineer, "copied from a map of Piatt 
Eogers,'' a large grant runs northwest from the head of 
the ba}', crossing the Boquet and stretching away into 
Lewis. LTpon it is written : "John Livingston k Asso- 
ciates. 7400 Acres Surveyed 1768, Granted 1787." It 
is upon this patent that the village of Wadhams Mills 
now stands. Its width extends, on the lake shore, from 
Headlands to the center of the village of Westport, its 
western boundary touching the north line of Skene's 
patent. John Livingston was doubtless one of the 
Livingstons of Livingston Manor, one of the most in- 
fluential families of that day. The patent is 
more commonly called the Kelly and DeLancey 
j)atent, and these may be the names of previous owners, 
-ince in the chapter upon Land Titles in Smith's His- 
tory of Essex County it is said that "John Kelly and 
John DeLancey obtained a patent for 7000 acres on 
the 18th of July, 1786. The description of the tract 
begins at the Bay de Roches Fendee and lies in a 



lo(i HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ijoithwest course from the village of Westport." De- 
LaDcey was at oue time a name to conjure with in the 
history of New Airisterdam, being that of a powerful 
royalist famil}'. It is uiore than likely that the patent 
was one of disputed ownership for a number of years. 
In the county atlas it is called the Taylor and Kimball 
patent, and these were doubtless its latest owners be- 
fore it was sold otf to settlers. 

Mccormick patent. Upon the same map a 
patent lying west of the Livingston patent, and running 
parallel with it, evidently surveyed at the same time, 
is marked "Daniel McCormick <fe Associates. 4000 
Acres, surveyed 1768, granted 1787." Daniel McCor- 
mick was a land speculator on a large scale, receiving 
immense grants of land in Franklin and St. Lawrence 
counties. The patent is boun«led on the south by Skene 
and on the west by Jonas Morgan. 

PLATT ROGERS PATENTS. These lie in the 
northeast part of the town, one of sixteeu hundred acres 
on the north town line, takiug in all the tillable land 
between Split Rock range and Coon mountain, and the 
other on the north shore of the bay, extending from 
Headlands to Rock Harbor. The latter was probably 
secured to gain control of the western landing of the 
ferry between Basin Harbor and Rock Harbor. Piatt 
Rogers received extensive grants of land in return for 
his services to the state in laying out roads, and showed 
a fine discrimination in picking out the best laud for 
himself. He is said to have received 73,000 acres in 
this way. This may well dazzle the vision of impecu- 



HISTORY OF WJ'JSTrORT lo7 

Dious clescendaDts, but we must remember that in many 
respects the laud was absolutely valueless, and even 
liable to become an embarrassment to its owner. Per- 
haps its most enviable return ^vas in the permanence 
given to his name, stamped as it is on some of the fair- 
est scenes of this region. 

ROB LEWIS PATENT. A small square patent of 
this name is shown on the lake shore of the Split Bock 
range, near Rattlesnake Den and the ore bed, in the 
atlas of 1876. 

JOHN WILLIAMS PATENTS. Two small square 
patents, one of two hundred acres and the other some- 
what larger, are cut out of the eastern portion of the 
Iron Ore Tract, and cover the country- of the ancient 
Stacys and Nichols. John Williams was associated 
with Piatt Rogers in certain land enterprises, and after 
the death of the latter his heirs carried on for man}' 
years litigation for the recovery of funds, but without 
success. 

JONAS MORGAN PATENTS. Two patents in the 
northwest of the town, along the Black river, bear this 
name. The larger was of four thousand eight hundred 
acres, and covered all the farming land of tlie western 
I'art, stretching across the Black river into Elizabeth- 
town. It was granted him in 1799, and in 1808 he re- 
ceived a smaller one, of seven hundred acres, corner- 
ing on the first and running across the river into Lewis. 
These were the latest gi-aiits made of any portion of our 
-oil, and Jonas Morgan was the onh' owner of one c)f 
the original j^atents who settled upon the land he owned. 



JoS n I STORY OF WESTPORT 

He was our first manufacturer of iron, building a forge 
on his larger patent, on the western bank of the river, 
at the place to which Meigs came half a century after- 
ward. The smaller patent was granted on condition 
that a furnace for casting "pig iron, hollow ware and 
stoves" should be built upon it within three years, and 
we know that he built a forge, known for years as 
"Morgan's New Forge," at the place which we now call 
Brainard's Forge. 

SPLIT ROCK TRACT. After the best land had 
been sold off in patents, the remainder formed two 
tracts, like bones left after the meat has been picked 
away. Surely the Split Rock Tract is bony enough, 
all rocks and mountain tops and forests, with a sprink- 
ling of iron ore and rattlesnakes. Not a single highway 
maintained by the town penetrates the Split Rock 
range. One good road there is, leading in to the Hun- 
ter place and Rock Harbor, but it is a private road. 
kept up tlie owners of the property, and crossed by two 
gates. Trails wind through the valleys and along 
the mountain sides to the quarry and to the iron 
mine, showing what the first roads of the early settlers 
must have been before the wildness of the forest was 
subdued. 

IRON ORE TRACT. This immense tract covers a 
tliird of the township, stretching over the southwestern 
part of Westport, the southeastern part of Elizabeth- 
town and the northern part of Moriah. It is well 
named, for beneath its rugged surface lie millions of ; 
tons of iron. It is like the stories of wonderful fairy \ 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT ir.a 

treasure hidden away in caves in tbe bowels of the 
earth, over which a spell has been cast so that no mortal 
shall evei' reach it and carr}- it away. And the word 
which cast the spell was this, — Titajiifemm^. 

There is an interesting map of the Iron Ore Tract, 
made probably in 1810, which now hangs in the village 
library. It shows a careful and accurate survey of 
this mountainous region, a wilderness of rocks, hills, 
brooks, ponds and marshes, whose scenic value was 
small in the eyes of the first settlers in comparison with 
the iron mines so fondly believed in. The Tract is di- 
vided into '284 lots, and in many cases tbe names of the 
purchasers of the lots are marked upon the paper now 
so worn and yellow. Some of them are Westport 
names, like Stacy and Douglass and Hatch, but the 
most famous name upon the map is that of Bach. This 
means the Theophylact Bache who was a meml^er of 
tlia Provincial Congress, the proceedings of which may 
l»e read in the ponderous volumes of the American 
Archives. He was en the Committee of Ccn-respond- 
ence with the Platts of Duchess county, Isaac Low, 
Isaac Roosevelt and other well-known names. He, it 
-'-ems, dabbled in syjeculation in northern lands, and 
his name is well wortli mentioning, if only for the sake 
of adding its sonorous syllables to our list. Surely it 
will be hard for Fame to pass entirely by a township 
which can show in its earliest record such names as 
Ananias, Zephaniah, Diadoras, Hezjkiali, Tiiliughfist, 
Melancthon and Theojniylact ! 



/I^® 



Hffl^ ^aF.,. 



1785— 1QQ3 



^^ 



^' Teach me to see the local color witlioat heint/ hi hid 
to the inner light.''' 

— Dr. Van Dyke's Prayer. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



The FolKs I Used to ILnow. 

oOo 

I know lots of folks in the eity, 

As pleasant as folks can be, 
A.nd vou can't claim to be lonesome 

With thousands for company, 
l^ut it's true that I get homesick, 

Once in a while, to go 
Where I can meet in the village street 

The folks 1 used to know. 

Some things happen over and over, 

In the grind of God's great mills, 
Like Christmas, and Sunday, and taxes, 

And disappointments, and bills. 
We've many a chance to be happy, 

And m.any to be forlorn. 
But you'll have but one, one mother, 

And just one place to be born. 

When spring comes stealing northward, 

And taps at my office door, 
I think of melting ice-cakes, 

Piled up on a rocky shore. 
And when there's a hint of winter 

In one or two frosty days, 
I wish I could see old Camel's Hump 

Through an Indian Summer haze. 

For I was bora in a little town 

On tfie shore of Lake Champlain; 
The prettiest spot on God's green earth 

That knows His sun and rain. 
Oh to see North Shore again, 

And Bluff Point's cedars green, ^ 
And the sea of glass, "neath sunset tires, 

Shining and still, between! 



im 



1(>4 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

To feel in the early morning 

A wind of dawn pass by, 
And push out a boat in the ripples. 

And float away silently. 
Then when the sun shines over 

The hill-tops of Vermont, 
To feel that you've had your vision. 

And it's breakfast that you want. 

Last time that I went fishing, 

On the reef in Pattison's baj'. 
You ought to have seen the six-pound pike 

That put himself in ray way ! 
Hand over hand I pulled him in. 

And his size begun to show; 
'""Hello!" says T, "come in out of the wetl 

You're a fish 1 used to know!" 

Parting graveyard grasses 

To read a familiar name, 
I said, " 'Tis a lovely spot to sleep. 

When past earth's praise or blame. " 
And thinking on the quiet dead, 

Where friends and kindred lie, 
I prayed, "O Lord, not mine the lot 

In the stranger's land to die!" 

Even the hope of heaven 

Preachers might paint more fair, 
If they would only promise 

'Twould seem like old times there. 
And I'm sure 'twill be a comfort, 

When my time has come to go, 
To think I shall meet, in the golden street, 

The folks I used to know. 



i 



HISTORY OF WFSTroUj lOd 



VI. 

Early Settleinent. 
1785-1815. 

We now come to the second part of our history, and 
that part which most nearly concerns us as a people, 
the story from the first settlement to the conditions of 
our own day. We shall deal no longer with the famous 
people whose names are to be found in histories and 
encyclopedias, but with the familiar, every day folks 
who came here and cut away the forests and cleared 
the farms and settled down to make the town what it 
is to-day, and whose descendants we daily meet upon 
our streets. This is what we really care for in a town 
history, and it is the only thing which makes it worth 
while to write such a book. 

AVe can never truly understand our own history with- 
out making a careful study of the story of the first set- 
tlements. Who were the men who first came to these 
shores for homes, with what ruling ideas, wdiat clier- 
lished beliefs, did they enter upon their new life here, 
and what was the old life which they had left behind ? 
To quote from an article in a recent magazine, "Begin- 
nings of American Literature," by George Edward 
Woodberry, 

"Everything begins in the middle — to adapt a wise 
saj'ing — like an epic poem. That is the central truth 
of human perspective. Open history where you will. 



166 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

and there are always men streaming over the mountains 
or over the sea from some horizon, bringing with them 
arms and cattle, battle-songs and prayers, and an im- 
aginary world ; their best treasure is ever the seed of 
some last year's harvest." 

And we find that the battle-songs and the prayers, 
the weapons actual and ideal, brought in by our first 
settlers were those of New England directly after the 
Eevolution — the New England not only of the Pilgrim 
Fathers but of Bunker Hill, with old England forgotten 
as a mother country, and with the Puritan church and 
the Puritan town meeting already familiar as a back- 
ground of civic life. This mainly, but with a modify- 
ing element, slender but strong, clearly discernible to 
one who knows our history by heart, of the ruling ideas 
of the dwellers along the Hudson, which were never 
those of New England in the last analysis, but w^ere 
much more feudal in regard to social structure and much 
more liberal in religious dogma. 

The annals of one hundred and twenty-seven years 
which follow must be given too minutely to bring out 
the effects of these subtly differing influences, but to 
the writer every commonplace name and incident has 
had a certain significance connected Avith its known or 
imagined source, lending it an inner illumination which 
no stranger could ever be made to understand. This 
by way of apology for the fact, quite evident to the 
writer, that she will not be able to make the story of 
modern Westport as interesting to other people as it 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 167 

lias unfailingly been to herself. And so now to our 
story. 

1785-1800. 

The first permanent settlement upon the soil of West- 
])ort was made on the lake shore, at Barber's Point, not 
far from the present site of the light-house. The lake 
at this place is less than two miles wide, and the first 
settler came from Vermont shore, landing on the soutli 
side of the point. He had travelled all the way from 
Harrington, Litchfield county, Connecticut, a distance 
of over two hundred miles. He must have bought his 
land of Gilliland, as he settled upon Bessboro. Why 
he came we cannot tell. Immediately after the Revo- 
tion there was a wonderful impulse of pioneering an I 
emigration which was felt all over New England, lead- 
ing men to forsake their old homes and plunge into the^ 
wilderness as their fathers had done before them. This 
first settler cannot have carried an elaborate outfit, but 
he had at least a gun and an axe, to protect him from, 
wild beasts and to make a clearing on the edge of the^ 
forest. And to-day you may find his great-great-grand- 
children on a part of the land that he cleared. 

This Qian was Major Hezekiah Barber. He was a 
major of militia in Connecticut, and always retained 
his title. He came first in the spring or summer of 
1785, and worked at clearing the land until winter came 
on, when he went back to Connecticut. The next year 
he returned with his wife's brother, Levi Frisbie, and 



16S HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

they worked together, cutting wood all winter, living in 
a bark shanty and building a log cabin near the shore, 
of "basswood logs split in the middle, and laid with the 
fiat sides up." Another cabin was also built as a shel- 
ter for cattle. In the spring of 1787 the young wife of 
Major Hezekiah, whose maiden name had been Huldah 
Frisbie, came all that long journey from Connecticut on 
horseback, carrying her first baby in her arms, and 
took jDossession of the log house. The household goods 
also came, in one load, drawn by oxen. The first crops, 
raised were put in with a "grub hoe" in the spaces be- 
tween the blackened stumps of the clearing. Grain 
was carried to Middlebury, in Vermont, to be ground, 
and as only one horseback load could be carried at a 
time, the family often ground their own corn in a large 
"Indian mortar" wdiich was found somewhere near, with 
an iron pestle. Their nearest neighbors, who must 
have come soon after the Barbers, were a family named 
Ferris, living in a log house at Coil's bay, near Ray- 
mond's old settlement. There was also the Ferris fam- 
i\j directly across the lake, at Arnold's bay, who had 
settled there before the Revolution. 

When Hezekiah Barber first came, this bit of earth 
vvhich we now call Westport was merely an unnamed 
fraction of the immense county called Washington 
which covered both sides of Lake Champlain. After 
he had been here three years, (that is, in 1788,) the 
county of Clinton was formed, comprising the present 
territory of Essex and Clinton counties and a part of 
Franklin. The county seat of this large county was 



HISTORY OF WEST r OR T Ki'J 

Plattsburgli, and it was divided into four towns. The 
town in which Barber lived was Crown Point, measur- 
ing about nine hundred square miles, and covering all 
the southern part of the present Essex county. The 
first town meeting was held in December of 1788, at 
Ticonderoga, and if Barber, and the two or tlire^ other 
men who may have been at the Point and at Raymond's 
Mills at that timCj voted at all, they went in a boat to 
Ti to do it. The election w^ag held in the "old King's 
store," a quaint, low-roofed stone building on the shore 
of the lake, which had been erected b}^ the French in 
1755, when they built Fort Carillon. At the time of 
the town meeting this building was occupied by Judge 
Oharles Hay, a brother of that Col. IJdney Hay whose 
affidavit we have seen in regard to the Raymond settle- 
ment. 

When Barber had been here ten years (1795) the 
jjumber of voters in the whole great county of Clin- 
ton was onl}" six hundred and twenty-four. When he 
had been here thirteen years, enough settlers had come 
in to justify the formation of she town of Elizabethtown, 
comprising the present townships of Elizabethtown and 
Westport. The first town meeting was held April 3, 
1798, "at the dwelling house of David Callender," v/hich 
probably stood somewhere .west of ,the Black river. 
That Hezekiah Barber went to this town meeting we 
may safely infer from the fact that he was ejected to 
three offices. The list of town officers is as follows : 

Supervisor, Ebenezer Arnold ; clerk, Sylvanus Lob- 
dell ; assessors^. Jacob Southwell, David Callender, 



no IIISrORY OF WESTPORT 

Norman Newell ; overseers of the poor, Jonathan Breck- 
inridge, Hezekiah Barber ; constable and collector, 
Nathan Lewis ; constable, Thomas Hinckley ; school 
commissioners, E. Newell, William Kellogg, Hezekiah 
Barber ; overseers of highways, (numbered from one to 
ten,) John Santy, N. Hinckley, John Potter, S. Lob- 
dell, Joseph Durand, Simeon Durand, Jacob Seture, 
Joseph Pangbnru, E. Newell, Stephen Eldridge. Fence 
Viewers, Hezekiah Barber, Elijah Bishop, Elijah Rich. 

No doubt the town offices were distributed imparti- 
ally to all parts of the township, and this list probably 
includes every man fit to hold office in its whole area. 
AVe may imagine this first town meeting as bearing a 
general resemblance to the one first held in the immor- 
tal town of Danvis, as reported by Rowland E. Robin- 
sou, in the words of the veteran ranger, Gran'ther Hill. 

"Not over twenty on us. all told ; an' we hel' it in a 
log barn 'at stood t'other side the river, on Moses Ben- 
liaui's pitch, an' we sot raound on the log mangers, an' 
the dark writ on the head of a potash berril. We 
hedn't no sech fix-uppances as these 'ere," pounding 
the s.eat with his fist ; "an' as fur that 'ere/' punching 
the stove with his cane, "we jest stomped raound to 
keep warm, an' didn't fool away much time no longer'n 
we was 'bleeged to." 

For the next two years, 1799 and 1800, the super- 
visor w^as ''E. Newell," (probably Ebenezer). In 1801 it 
was Elijah Bishop, in 1802 Charles Goodrich, and horn 
1803 to 1805 it was none other than our friend Heze- 
kiaJi. Thus w:e see that ke attained the cro.wning am- 



HISTORY OF WESTrORT 171 

bitiou of every good American citizen — that of beini* 
elected supervisor of his own town, — and that he hekl 
the office three years. In 1799 Essex county had been 
formed, with the county seat at Essex, and so wlien e 
sat in council with the" other supervisors in the county, 
he went to Esses, and it is more than likeh' that he 
wended his way thither in a boat, perhaps in his 
own ferry boat, which furnished him a good income car^ 
rying passengers and freight across the lake. He lived 
five 3^ears after his last term as supervisor, dying in 
1810, and he was buried at the Point, only a few steps 
from the place where he landed twenty-five years ber 
fore. In that twenty -five years he had seen a great 
change come over the face of the country, from utter 
wildness and desolation to a fair degree of civilization. 
At the time of his death the centre of population for the 
shore of the town was at Barber's Point, the settlement 
at Coil's Mills being then larger than that at I^orthwest 
Bay. The first steamer on the lake, (and the second 
in the world,) liad been built two years before he died, 
and made a regular liinding at the Point, but none ai 
the Bay."' 

*Hezekiah Barber had six children, and as they all married and settled here, the 
iamily record in itse'f, if gfiven in fall, would make a chapter of town history. The 
oldest, Jerusha, married Alexander Young^, who settled on the north shore of 
Young-'s bay, and built a house where Mr. Ben Worman's farm house now stands. 
This house was burned, and rebuilt by Andrew Frisbie, son of L.e,vi Alexander 
Young had a ship-yard in the bay, and the ruins of his wharf may still b^ seen 

2. Sally married Gideon Hammond, son of Nathan, ?.nd lived on the back load, 
where Rush Howard now lives. 

3. Hezekiah married Maria, daughter of Till'nghast Cole, who lived on the 
lake road, on the place now occupied by his great grandson, Henry Merrill. One 
i:3i his.childreo, named Major IJezekiah after his grandfather, still lives on a part 



172 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

In following the life of our first settler, we now find 
ourselves years ahead of the story of all Westport. but 
our steps are easily retraced. 

Another very early settler upon the lake shore was 
James Eing, at B,ock Harbor. He is described as ''an 
English master sailor," and so must have known the 
smell of salt water, but he was content to use his skill 
upon these tideless waters in sailing the ferry boat 
which plied from shore to shore between Basin Har- 
bor and Rock Harbor. 

The ferries were an important factor in the develop- 
ment of this region. They were to early Westport 
what a railroad is to a new western town. The ferry at 
Barber's Point, this one at Rock Harbor and one es- 
tablished by McNeil, running from Charlotte to Essex, 
were all opened at nearly the same time^ and accom- 
modated a rapid stream of travel flowing from New 
England into Essex county. Before the ferries ran, em- 
igrants were obliged to trust to the chances of hiring 
boats when they reached the lake shore, unless they 
came with their own bateaux, like Gilliland, which was^ 
too expensive for the ordinary traveller. 

of the original Barber property. Another, Mrs. Harriet Sheldon, has been of 
>jreat assistance in preparing the sketch of Barber's Point. 

4. Alanson married Harriet Haskell, and his daughter Maria married Ruel 
Arnold. They lived in the brick house on the middle road now owned by the 
Westport Farms. 

5. Rhoda married John Chandler. 

6. Harriet married twice. Her first husband was Amos Holcomb, and her 
daugfhter Hiildah taught school in what was perhaps the first school house in town^ 
on the south side of the road to the ferry. Her second husband was Asahel Ha- 
vens, the ferryman, who lived near the steamboat wharf at Northwest Bay» 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT ITS 

Watson says, iu his history of the couuty, "In 179U, 
Piatt Eogers established a ferrj- from Basin Harbor, 
and constructed a road from the landing to a point near 
Split Rock, where it connected with the road made in 
an early period of the settlement. He erected, in the 
same season, a bridge over the Boquet, at Willsboro 
falls, and constructed a road from that place to Peru, 
in Clinton county. These services were remunerated 
by the state, through an appropriation to Rogers and 
his associates, of a large tract from the public lands." 
Rogers also built the first bridge over the Ausable river, 
at the Chasm. 

James Ring remained at Rock Harbor onh' a few 
years. His wife's maiden name was Sarah Black. In 
1791 their second daughter was born at Rock Harbor 
and named Sarah after her mother. Two years after 
this the family moved to Brookfield, in Essex, and there 
Ring died. The daughter born in Westport grew 
up to marry one of the Essex Staff ords, and not 
quite a hundred years after she was born at Rock Har- 
bor her grandson came to Westport to settle in the 
place as a physician, — Dr. Frank T. DeLano. He has 
told me that his grandmother was accustomed to relate 
the fact that of her having been born at Rock Harbor, 
and he has an impression that James Ring came to the 
place several years before that event, so that we have 
proof of his having been one of the earliest settlers, 
though probably not earlier than Hezekiah Barber. 

Sometime between 1791 and 1798 came Daniel Wright, 
from Gilsum, N. H., with his family and his \vorldlj 



174 m STORY OF WESTPORT 

goods. After crossing the Connecticut river lie must 
have followed the road across Vermont which was first 
opened by Sir Jeffery Amherst, the summer of 1759 
from Chimney Point to the Connecticut. Wright prob- 
ably came along the lake shore to Basin Harbor and 
there took the ferry to Rock Harbor and then toiled 
over the "Bildad road" across the Split Rock range."^ 

At last he came to the farm he had chosen, as stony 
and rough as the uplands of New Hampshire which he 
had left, on the western slope of the mountains, over- 
looking the fertile valley of the Boquet, with the level 
clearings of Essex and Willsboro in the distance, and 
the Green mountains beyond the glimpse of the lake. 
Here he settled and cleared the land, which remained 
in the family to the time of his grandchildren. It is 
now occupied by Mrs. Elbridge Lawrence. 

Daniel Wright is a fine example of the early settlers 
of Essex county. He and his wife came first from 
Connecticut, like the Holcombs, the Frisbies,. the Bar- 
bers and the Lovelands. He was born in Lebanon, 
Conn., in 1757, and his wife. Patience Bill, was born in 
Hebron in the same year. They moved to Gilsum, N; 
H., and there he served three years in the Continental 
Line. He fought at the battle of Bunker Hill, served 
eight months in 1775 in the regiment of the famous CoL 
John Stark, (who had seen our shores as one of Rogers' 

*rhis was the nearest way, but it would seem that it might have been easier to- 
come by wa.y of Essex. It is always interesting to trace the route followed by the 
pioneers when they first penetrated into this trackless region. In the winter of 
179). Stephen Keese came from Columbia county to Peru, (north of Bessboro) oa 
the ice, and took advantage of the level highway of tbje frozen Lake 



HISTORY OF WESTrORT /7o 

Eaugers in the "old French war,") all the year 177() 
under Col. Samuel Reed, and in June of 1777 his name 
appears in a New Hampshire regiment which was sent 
"to reinforce the Continental Ami}' at Ticonderoga." 
This was when Burgoyne's army was advancing up 
Lake Champlain, sending out the proclamation which 
-(J aroused the country. On the 5th of eTuly St. Clair 
evacuated Ticonderoga, and fled to the south, pursued 
by Burgoyne. Thus Daniel Wright was in this fleeing 
army, and also, it is probable, saw another turn in the 
fortunes of war in the surrender of Burgoyne at Sara- 
toga. 

He came into Westport a man about forty years of 
age, with an honorable record of military service and 
the rank of Lieutenant. On March 25, 1802, he was com- 
missioned 2nd Major "of a regiment of militia of the 
county of Essex, whereof Joseph Sheldon, Esq., is 
Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant," by Gov. George 
Clinton. In 1806 he was made 1st Major of his regi- 
ment, and in 1807 Lt.-Col Commandant. In 1811 he 
was raised to the high rank of Brigadier General of 
Militia in the Counties of Essex, Clinton and Franklin, 
and held this responsible position throughout the war 
of 1812, where we shall meet him again. "^ 



♦General Wright was accompanied to Wetport by but one child, his daughter 
Jerusha, who was born July 17, 17SS, and married Dec. 22, 179.5, £0 lllias Sturtevant, 
born at Plymouth, Mass , June 4, 1769, son of Cornelius and Sarah (Bosworth) 
Sturtevant. They had seven children, all born, I think, m Westport. 

I. Daniel Wright Sturtevant, born 1798, was a physician, and practiced some 
years in Westport and in Essex ; afterward went west, and died in Galesburg, III. 

2 Harriet, late m liie, became the third wife oJE Dr.. Diadorus Holcomb Nc 

uidrejQ_, 



176 HISTORY OF WESTPORl 

At the same time with the settlements aloug the lake 
shore, pioneers were coming in to the valleys of the Bo- 
quet and the Black. The strip of land called Pleasant 
Valley, along the former river, was granted Piatt Rogers 
from the state on condition of its being immediately 
settled, and every effort was made to induce reliable 
men to come in, fathers of families if possible, sober, in- 
dustrious, likely to remain and to pay for their farms. 
On this account the sale or grant of large portions of 
public lands to one man, or to a land company whose 
prosperity depended upon the revenue derived from the . 
payment of settlers for their farms, was a real advan- 
tage to a new country. Nothing could bring about so 
bad a condition of things as land free to any squatter, 
who felt no obligation to improve his farm, and who 
might be dispossessed at any moment by a second 
comer who had a stronger arm or was a better shot 
than he. I find no traces of a squatter-and-lynch-law 
period in the first settlement of Elizabethtown and 
Westport. Men came in from the older colonies, 

3. George W,> always known as "Deacon Sturtevant," from his long- tenure o£ 
that office in the Congretfational church at Wadhams. He married Clonnda 
Phelps, and had three children. Edmund, (lived in Vineland, N.J.,) Carrie Maria' 
and Harriet, who married Dr- Pease, a missionary to Micronesia. 

4. Sophronia, unmarried. 

5. John Sturtevant also bore the title'of Deacon for majiy years, filling that office 
in a Congregational church in Gasport, N. Y, He married Mary Royce, daughter 
of William and Anna (Henry) Royce, and had seven children, Daniel Wright, 
Henry Rue, (Mrs. Granville Clark), Mary, William Royce, Geerge W. and 
Alice Linda (Mrs Webster Royce). The only descendants of General Wright 
now living in Essex County are William R. Sturtevant and Mrs. Webster Royce. 

6. Elmira married Mr. Marshall. 

7. Maria married Edmund D-iy, and had three children, Charles, HeLen. and 
Aln^A. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 177 

bought land, built homes, and set themselves to abide 
by laws which they took pride in making. Town 
officers were elected at the earliest possible oppor- 
tunity, and among them were three men whose duty 
it was to attend to schools for the children. This 
shows in itself the character of the new township, and 
it is plain that it would naturally attract to itself only 
law-abidiug citizens. 

The common route for settlers from the south was 
by the valleys of the Schroon and the Boquet. In this 
way came many from Dutchess county, like Joseph 
Jenks, who settled first at Pleasant Yalley,and afterward 
moved to Northwest Bay. The water power of the 
swift flowing Black river was a great attraction, and a 
rude little saw mill, where the logs from the clearings 
could be cut up, was a very desirable neighbor. Partly 
on this account the highlands of the back part of the 
town came to be settled very early. Another reason was 
the character of the soil. It is well-known that the 
first settlers, as a rule, sought the high, sandy lands in 
preference to the clay of the low lands on the lake shore. 
The light loam was much more easily worked, and for 
a number of years would be more productive than the 
heavier soil. The water supply was sure to be good, 
among the mountain springs, and it was always a wise 
precaution to avoid the malaria of low-lying marshes. 
In those days there was far more moisture in the soil 
everywhere than there is now, since the country has 
been stripped of its forests. Another thing that might 
well be considered in the years close following the Eev- 



178 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

clution was the fact that the settler's cabin was safer 
from enemies, red or white, if it were hidden deep in 
the forest, that it could be if built upon the lake shore, 
in sight of passing war parties or scouts. This idea 
was suggested by the historian Francis Parkman, in a 
conversation with Mrs. F. L. Lee upon this subject a 
number of years ago. The substance of the conversa- 
tion was given to the writer by Mrs. Lee, and the clear- 
ness of Mr. Parkman's insight will be fully perceived 
when it is remembered how the defeat of St. Clair in 
Ohio in 1791 sent a shudder of fear through the heart 
of every frontiersman, lest the western Indians should 
combine with the Six Nations, and the scenes on the 
older frontiers be repeated in the Champlain valley. 

Thus we have at the end of the eighteenth century a 
distinct advance from the stretch of primeval forest 
threaded by Kobert Rogers and his men in the "old 
French war." Now there are mills and clearings, the 
wood-chopper's axe scarcely ever sounding beyond the 
reach of human ear, log cabins among the stumps, 
crops of corn and potatoes harvested every year, and a 
few domestic animals, shielded with great ingenuity 
and patience from the Avild animals who still roam the 
woods. Homes and children, and a promise of schools 
— all this with new settlers coming in from the south 
or the east in a steady stream. It seems to me a 
good time to have lived in Westport, in spite of the log- 
houses and the wolves. Any one who has ever felt the 
charm of camping out, or who has experienced the un- 
shakable bliss of setting up housekeeping for the first 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 179 

time, can appreciate the keen flavor that there must 
have been in these early days. 

Besides the signs of human life and occupation which 
were beginning to change the face of the land, a new 
era could be plainly read in the life upon the water. 
The Indian bark canoe, the whale boats of the Rangers, 
the bateaux of Montcalm and Amherst, then Arnold's 
sturdy fighting craft, with the gallant Inflexible and her 
sister ships riding triumphant, ruling all the lake, fol- 
lowed by the martial splendor of the fleet of Burgoyne, 
led by the twenty-four-gun Royal George, all these, and 
many a keel unmentioned in any record, had floated in 
the waters of our bay. Now nothing but the humble 
ferry-boat, making its way from shore to shore with 
freight of household goods, or the heavy scow of 
some fisherman catching his dinner of fish, was seen. 
This is not nearly so interesting to read about as the 
stories of more stormy times, but it was a vast deal 
more comfortable for the people who lived here. Bar- 
ber at the Point and Ring at Rock Harbor saw each 
other's sails swing and fill in the same wind, or flap idly 
against the mast in a maddening calm. Further down 
the lake another sail, that of McNeil, ferryiog from 
Charlotte to Essex, might be discerned, and the pirogue 
of the proprietors of the colony upon the Saranac made 
its trips to the ore bed and back again, carrying ore to 
supply the forge which was the pride of the Saranac, 
and then carrying to the south the iron which brought 
the owners a hundred dollars a ton. The ore bed was 
the one which we now call "the Goff bed." Bhilip 



180 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Skene first owned it, and at the time of which we now 
vrrite it was called, on that account, "Skene's ore bed," 
though it had belonged to the state since the confisca- 
tion of Skene's property.* It was also often called the 
"Crown Point bed," and it lies upon territory which 
belonged to the town of Westport until 1849. 

The "pirogue" of the Plattsburgh proprietors was 
the same kind of vessel called in Cooper's novel, the 
"Water Witch," a "periagua," and thus described : 

"The periagua, as the craft was called, partook of a 
European and an American character. It possessed 
the length, narrowness, and clean bow of the canoe, 
from which its name was derived, with the flat bottom 
and lee-boards of a boat constructed for the shallow 
waters of the Low Countries. Twenty years ago 
(Cooper was writing in 1830) vessels of this description 
abounded in our rivers, and even now their two long 
and unsupported masts, and high, narrow headed sail, 
are daily seen bending like reeds to the breeze, and 
dancing lightly over the billows of the bay. 

♦Philip Skene had a forge at his colony of Skenesboroug-h, at the head of Lake 
Champlain, and I do not know where he got the iron ore with which to supply it 
unless he brought it from his own ore bed near Crown Point. The ore was easily 
obtained from outcropping ledges, near the water's edge, and its transportation in 
boats was no great problem. If this conjecture has any foundation in truth, the 
Plattsburgh company were not the first miners here. 

In connection with this subject Mr. Winslow C. Watson made a slight mistake 
something very unusual in his careful and conscientious work. On page 439 of 
his History of Essex County he quotes from a letter "of the late Levi Higby, of 
Willsboro," as follows: "A bed at Basin Harbor, owned by Piatt Rogers, was the 
only deposit of iron ore which at that period (iSoi) had been developed in the whole 
region." A little reflection upon the geological formation of the Vermont lit- 
toral will show that it is no place tc look for deposits of iron ore, and a visit to 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT isi 

"There is a variety of the class of a size and preten- 
sion altogether superior to that just mentioned, which 
deserves a place among the most picturesque and strik- 
ing boats that float. He who has had occasion to nav- 
igate the southern shore of the Sound must have often 
seen the vessel to which we allude. It is distin- 
guished by its great length, and masts which 
naked of cordage, rise from the hull like two tall and 
faultless tree.-^. When the eyes runs over the daring 
height of the canvas, the noble confidence of the rig, 
and sees the comparatively vast machine handled with 
ease and grace by the dexterity of two fearless and ex- 
pert mariners, it excites some such admiration as that 
which springs from the view of a severe temple of an- 
tiquity. The nakedness and simplicity of the con- 
struction, coupled with the boldness and rapidity of its 
movements, impart to the craft an air of grandeur that 
its ordinary uses would not give reason to expect " 

Later we find that the"periagua" of Cooper's descrip- 
tion had a half-deck, and so no doubt did the vessel be- 
longing to the "twelve patriarchs." It was this boat 
which carried most of the passengers to and from Platts- 
burgh, and upon her deck might have been met, at dif- 

Basin Harbor will soon convince any one that there is not and never could have 
been an iron mine in that vicinity. But the mistake came about in a very natural 
way. Piatt Rog-ers lived at Basin Harbor, and owned and worked the ore bed on 
Skene's grant, across the lake and a few miles further south. Mr. Higbv, who 
was engaged in the first iron manufacturing enterprise of Essex county, knew per- 
fectly whence came the ore from which he made anchors in Willsboro, but his let- 
ter was written after a long lapse of years, and he must hive been momentarily 
confused between the dwelling place of Piatt Rogers and the location of his ore 
bed. 



182 BlSrORY OF WESTPORT 

ferent times, many very interesting people.^ There 
were the Platts, Colonel Zephaniah, the most distin- 
guished of them all, and Captain Nathaniel, and Judge 
Charles, who was the first' comer, and who named the 
town of Plattsburgh, and from v/hose letters to his 
brother Zephaniah so many bits descriptive of the lake 
country may be gathered. He notes that the lake froze 
over January 16 in 1786, and that the snow was thirty- 
two inches deep. Writing afterward about himself he 
says, -'At the close of the war I had purchased a few 
class rights of the soldiers, and having collected a little 
something, set out for the woods, and after viewing 
several places, I sat down on the west side of Lake 
Champlain, an entirely new country and wilderness, 
and called the town Plattsburgh." It was this man's 
son, Charles C. Piatt, who was afterward to marry the 
daughter of our Elizabeth, Eliza Ross. But that is 
looking years ahead, when the periagua was a worn- 
out hulk. When she was still in her prime, she must 
have carried often the man who came closer than any 
other to our history in the years before the Revolutioo. 
His face was sadder than when he looked from the 

♦Often black faces looked out from under the sail of the periag^ua, and it is prob 
able that the laborers at the ore bed were often slaves. In the census of 1800 the 
population of Essex; and Clinton counties was 8iS72. including 5S slaves. A ma- 
jority of the slaves were probablj at Plattsburgh, upon the Piatt estate, as the fam- 
ily are said to have brought forty slaves to Richlands. It is not believed that a 
slave was ever owned upon the soil of Westport. Piatt Rogers brought his slaves 
with him from Dutchess county to Basin Harbor, but they were set free by the 
Act of Congress which admitted Vermont as a free state in 1791. Two of these 
slaves. Primus Storm and Milly his wife, spent the remainder of their lives at 
Basin Habor, faithful and beloved friends of the family, and descendants of th§ir?, 
v?ere there for many years.. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT i-svy 

deck of tlie JIusquinonge upon these fair and wooded 
shores, with wife aud child beside him, and it was but 
a wandering and melancholy gaze which he now di- 
rected toward Bessboro. The man wdio had perhaps 
sailed into Northwest Bay in the schooner of Major 
Philip Skene, and there stood by his side listening to 
the unfolding of plans which should make this coast 
part of a noble principality, dependent only upon His 
Majesty Kiug George, now sat in w^eary despondency, 
hardly realizing the truth, that the Champlain valley 
now looked to new masters for the shaping of its des- 
tiny. 

VTillian Gilliland had left Willsboro in the wake of 
the army retreating from Canada, in the summer of 
1776. He had been imprisoned in Albany upon 
a charge of treason, which seems to have been 
entirely unfounded, and was kept for years in the 
debtors' prison of New York. The buildings of the 
settlement at Milltown were destroyed during the 
course of the Revolution, chiefly, it is said, 
by refugees fleeing from the battle of Saratoga, and 
were never rebuilt by Gilliland. Froai the moment 
that he was driven from Willsboro with his helpless 
family, "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed 
faster" upon his footsteps. The titles to his large pos- 
sessions in land had been received from the king, and 
in many cases the colonial government refused to recog- 
nize them. Thus deprived of his land, his chief source 
of revenue, he was unable to pay his debts, and found 
himself in evil case. Many of his letters, written dur- 



184 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ing his imprisonment, have been preserved, and set 
forth with passionate eloquence his wrongs and his suf- 
fering. One ''proposal" to his creditors, given in Wat- 
son's "Pioneers of the Champlain Valley," is addressed 
to two interesting names as opposing counsel— Brock- 
hoist Livingston and Aaron Burr. 

In 1785 his daughter Elizabeth, after whom he had 
named Bessboro, married Daniel Boss, If she was 
born, as we have supposed, the same year that Bess- 
boro was first surveyed, she was twenty-one at the time 
of her marriage. Daniel Boss had come from Dutchess 
county to settle in Essex, and in Essex the remainder 
of their lives was spent. Thus the descendants of our 
Elizabeth were the Rosses of Essex, a family remark- 
able in many ways. 

Released from the debtors' prison in 1791, Gilliland 
returned to Lake Champlain to spend his last days with 
his daughter Elizabeth. And now the fact was recog- 
nized that his mind, once so strong and commanding, 
was hopelessly affected. Imprisonment, losses and 
suffering, injustice and hope deferred, had wrought 
their work upon him. He wandered about the fields 
and woods of Essex and Willsboro, fancying himself 
back in the early days of its settlement, and recalling 
his subsequent misfortunes only at unclouded intervals. 
Still, he never lost his power of judgment in certain 
practical matters, and he was often consulted in regard 
to first locations, and early surveys and boundaries. In 
this way he was often of the greatest service to the 
laud company formed for the purchase and sale of 



UISTORV OF WESTPORT 1S5 

lands in Northern New York, whose aclroinistrative 
head in this region was Piatt * Rogers, Mr. Eogers 
thought highly of Mr, Gilliland, knowing the history of 
his labor and his misfortunes, and often asked his ad- 
vice. One day, about the first of February, 1796, Mr. 
Gilliland visited Mr, Bogers, going on foot across the 
frozen lake, as was his habit. There was doubtless a 
welhbeaten track from Essex to Basin Harbor, as all 
travel invariably took to the level fioor of the lake as soon 
as it was frozen sufficiently to bear the weight of a man. 
•ind this was the safest and most direct roijte that could 
he taken. The distance is perhaps ten miles. Mi". Gil- 
liland made his visits to Mr. Bogers and set out on his 
return, but was never again seen alive after he passed 
out of sight of the windows of the house at Ba-in Har^ 
bor. He must have lost his way upon the ice and 
turned off upon the shore too soon, wandering about in 
ihe mountains south of Esses: until he sank and per^ 
ished from cold and exhaustion. When his body was 
discovered., several days later, it was mournfully evir- 
dent what a brave struggle he had n^ade for life. After 
his strength liad failed him so that ha was unable to 
walk, he had dragged himself along until the flesh was 
worn from bis hands and knees. Aud it was upon 
Westport soil that he breathed his last, somewhere near 
jthe northern base of Coon mountain. 

So died William Gilliland, the first colonizer of 
Willsboro, Essex aud Westport. Piatt Rogers died 
(two years afterward, at Plattsburgh, and was buried at 
Bitsin Hajbor, in tlie burial plot still owjD,ed by his 



1S6 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

descendants of the fourth generation. With the death 
of these two men, and the end of the century, the first 
period of settlement, that of taking up land, may be 
said to have ended. 



1800-1815. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the town- 
ship was dotted with clearings. Settlement had begun 
at three points on the lake shore, determined by the 
mill site at the mouth of Raymond's brook, and the de- 
mand for ferriage at Barber's Point and Rock Harbor. 
Next the high sandy land in the northwest was bought 
for farming, and rapidly cleared and cultivated. Then 
settlement began at the head of the bay, at what exact 
date we cannot tell^ but there is no sign e-f any house 
there befo-re the opening of the century. EconoQiic 
force overcame the instinctive preference of the pioneer 
for the highest land he could cultivate, and led to the 
clustering of houses where the principal village now 
stands. At this place was water power for a saw mill 
and a grist mill, and there was eager demand for the 
products of both. A steady current of emigration 
was setting in from the east into Essex county, and* 
for a large share of it this was the most convenient 
point of entrance. Many early settlers at Pleasant 
Valley, Keene and Jay, coming from New England,, 
Avished that the ferry should set them ashore in the 
bav, and soon the sail from Basin. Harbor came oftener 



HISTOUY OF WFS'JTOirr IS7 

liere tliaD to Rock Harbor. This created a demand for 
au inn, for the shelter of tired travelers and their beasts. 
In the very first years of the century the rude little 
forges on the Boquet and the Black sought a port for 
the shipping of their bar iron, and this port was evi- 
dently at Northwest Bay. Tliese conditions led the 
.ow ners of the land to lay out the plan of a village, witlj 
streets along which lots were soon sold. 

The owners of tiie land at this time were Ananias and 
Piatt Rogers, sons of Piatt Bogers, who had died in 1798. 
and his son-in-law, John Halstead. AH the land owned 
b}" Piatt Rogers, Senior, in Westport, seems to have 
fallen into the hands of these three men, but tbe only 
one who settled here for life was John Halstead, with 
his wife, Phebe Rogers Halstead Lot No. 16, (Me- 
•lancton Smith's oo the map of Skene's Patent,) seems 
to have belonged to Ananias and Piatt Rogers, Jr., and 
No. 15, (Zephaniah Piatt's on the map,) to John Hal- 
stead, while Edward Cole bought upon No. 14, (Na- 
thaniel Piatt's). 

The village was laid out and a map of it drawn by 
Ananias Rogers,'^ dated May 23, 1800. There were 
thirty-four lols and three streets, Washington, Liberty 

*rhis remarkabLs name is enough In itself to prov£ Puritan lineajfe, with its ac- 
companying lack of a sense of humor. It is to be feared that the present g-enera 
tion, with its jokes about the "Ananias corner," and other flippancies, will need to 
be remindea that there are in the New Testament two mtn of this same name. The 
lying Ananias lived in Jerusalem, but there was another in Damascus who is thus 
described : "And one Ananias, a devout man accerding to the law, having a good 
report of all the Jew^ which dwelt /there." Acts 22: 12. The /n-an who ,first sur- 
veyed our village streets was named after his grandfather, g^nd h;s grandfather 
7/as named after Ananias of Damascus. 



1S8 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

and Water, the first being evidently intended for the 
principal street. It ran westward up the hill from the 
lake, and at the foot of it was the regular landing for 
the ferry, as the Hue steamer stops at the foot of it now 
every summer day. Liberty Street lay parallel to 
Washington and south of it, running also to the lake. 
This street was not actually opened until 1837, and to 
this day runs only so far east as to Main Street. The 
third street was Water Street, running north and south 
aloug the lake shore, and intersecting Washington and 
Liberty. The only part of it now in use as a street is 
the road leading from the wharf to the "old stone mill." 
The cluster of old buildings removed when the land 
was bought by the Westport Inn was supposed to stand 
upon the ancient Water Street. 

The description accompanying the map speaks ol 
"Washington street, seventy-five links wide, and Lib- 
erty street,, each sixty-two and a half links wide, all 
which lots and streets lie in range with and parallel to 
the sides and ends of the dwelling house that is now 
building on the northwest corner of Lot No. 1." 

This house, the angles of which oriented the streets, 
of the village, stood upon the same lot now occupied 
by the Westport Inn, close upon the northwest corner. 
It was built by John Halstead and occupied by him 
until his death in 1844,. and after that by two genera- 
tions of his descendants. It has been described to me 
as "a low red house," with the front door divided hori- 
zontally in the middle, after the old Dutch custom^ 
familiar to John Halstead and his wife in their resi- 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT ISO 

deDce among the Dutch settlers aloug the Hudsou. 
This half-door opened upon an "entry," north of which 
was a large room used as a bar-room as long as the 
house Avas used as a tavern. Tliis was for some years 
the largest room in the village, and was the common 
place of public assembly. The itinerant preachers 
who visited the village were wont to gather their audi- 
ences in this room, and in the long winter evenings the 
frequent and informal meetings of the mens' club (a 
term never yet heard in that day) were held here. 
Henry Holcomb went in and out of the house as a boy, 
and has told me how it looked to him, and how a row 
of horse sheds stood across the road, with a watering- 
trough for the use of travellers. He has told me, too, 
how he robbed John Halstead's cherry trees o' nights, 
in the orchard back of the house, and I hereby render 
to him full title to all the fruit he took, wishing that all 
my ancestral cherries could bring me in as rich returns 
as the fun of hearing him tell about it. 

This was the first frame house in the village, though 
there w^ere two or three log houses there before it. The 
descendants of its builder moved it a little way io the 
south, to the present site of the Westport Inn, and re- 
modeled it almost entirely. For seveial years a part of 
its original walls formed the middle division of the Inn, 
but in 1898 the last one of the solid old timbers was 
removed, and now ''the old Halstead house" is gone 
from the face of the earth. Straoge, strauge to handle 
ihis old map and think how it? frailtj has defied de- 



190 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

struction so much more securely than the house, or the 
htiDcls that made it. 

Shortly after the first map of the village was drawn, 
ten more lots were added, along the imaginary Water 
Street, but seem never to have been sold, as all the land 
upon the water front, with the exception of that close 
about the wharf, remained in the family until it was 
sold to the Lake Champlain Ore k Iron company in 
1868. This property now forms the grounds of the 
Westport Inn. 

In two years' time settlement had increased so rap- 
idly that another street was necessary, and Main Street 
was laid out, and the number of lots raised to sixty-two, 
on July 31, 1802. The part of the village thus mapped 
out extended from the north line of the present Library 
lawn to a point somewhere near the Arsenal, and west- 
ward to the short street which connects Washington 
and Liberty.^ 

*rhe original first map of the village, drawn by Ananias Rogers, is owned by 
Miss Alice Lee. It was given her some time ago by the late Anthony J, B» Ross, 
an attorney in Essex, (and a descendant, by the way, of our Elizabeth Gilliland,) 
whose father was acquainted with the Halsieads, and probably had the map fron> 
them in the settlement of some dispute over land titles. A copy of it is still owned 
by a great-grand daughter of John Halstead, and upon this copy are marked the 
prices of the iots. They range from $7.00 to $i;o.oo, and the four lots in the corner 
where John Halstead's house was built are marked $850.00. this price do doubt in- 
cluding the house. A marginal note says, "Whole amount $3,473 00," which fur- 
nishes the basis for an interesting calculation of the rise of real estate since iSco. 
There was a copy of the village map drawn on sheepskin, ia 1S49, by J. Collins 
Wicker,^ whoever that may have been. It was doubtless made by order of the town* 
board, and belonged to the town, to be kept with other archives of this common- 
wealth, but it cannot have been very carefully guarded, as it was found by a work- 
man, m a drawer, I think, in the store of Mr. Reuben Ingalls, after the store was- 
sold. There is now a blue-print copy of tke map, made to Mi^s Lse's order bi? 
George Gregory in iSgo, 



I 



HISTORY OF wjcsrroirr im 

Since the flat-bottoined ferry-boat which brought the 
household goods of John Halstead across the hike may 
be called the Mayflower of our village history, an ac- 
count of his descendants may carry the mind along 
Hues of heredity not without interest to many of my 
readers. 

John Halstead and Phebe his wife had eight children, 
as follows : 

1. Piatt Rogers Halstead, born March 20, 1794, died 
February 19, 1849, of consumption. He never married, 

2. John Halstead, died at the age of nineteen of 
consumption, 

3. Maria Halstead, died at twenty-six of consump- 
tion. 

4. Jacob Halstead, born March 5, 1800, drowned 
"November's, 1825, with four others, all on board the 
schooner Tro}^ which went down in a gale about mid- 
night, off Coil's Bay. These four older children were 
born at Basin Harbor, and all the family are buried in 
Westport 

5. Phebe Jane lived to be four years old. She must 
have been one of the first children born at Northwest 
Bay. 

6. The next child, born 1806, lived to be six yearv<^ 
old. 

7. Caroline Eliza, born August 18, 1809, died in 
Bedford, N. T., March 27, 1870, was the onlv one of all 
this family who married. 

8. George, born August 21, 1812, was drowned with 
lijs bjotlier JsLcab in the schooner 7^>"o//. at the aoe of 



192 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

thirteen. The mother of this family died when the 
youngest child was four years old, and John Halstead 
married again, a Mrs. Lydia Pardee, who had a family 
of children of her own by a former marriage. She had 
no Halstead children. 

Caroline Eliza Halstead married Miles McFarland 
Sawyer, January 5, 1832. They had seven childreUj, 
all born in Westport : 

1. Phebe Maria, 1832-1893. She married John 
Nelson Barton and had two children. 

Helen married Henry J. Griffin of Yorktown Heights,, 
Westchester Co. ^ and has one child, Anna Caroline Griffin^ 
born Dec. 6, 1891. Caroline Halstead married Prank Bar- 
ton Royce, and is the ooly descendant of John Halstead 
left in the Champlain valley. 

2. Piatt Sogers Halstead Sawyer, 1834-1885. He 
was a physician, and surgeon of the 96th N. Y. in the 
Civil War. He was twice married, first to Helen Ba- 
ker,, second to. Frances Waters. His children : 

Frances Edna, married Hervey R. Dorr of Chicago^ has 
one little girl, Frances. 
Lea Halstead Sawyer, Chicago. 

3. Joseph Willoughby, died at seventeen of con- 
sumption. 

4. Washington Irving, 1839-1862. Killed at Gainer 
Mills, Ya. 

5.. Conant, 1841-1898, married Jeannette Wright in» 
1864, after her death in 1893 married Mrs. Mary E. 
Fowler of Auburn. His children now live in Auburn. 
He was a physician in the State Prison there^ 

Ka^therlne Kent Sawyer. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 193 

Thomas Conant Sawyer, married Alice M. Grant, has 
three children, Jeannette, Thomas Conant, Jr., and Grant. 

John Halstead Sawyer, a lawyer in Auburn, married 
Lulu E. Walker, has one child. Conant. 

6. John Halstead, 1843-1882. Married Emma 0. 
Knox of Bedford, N. Y. Died in Doniphan, Kansas, 
being Mayor of the city at the time of his death. 

7. Caroline Loraine, 1846-1847. 

Also in 1800 came Enos Loveland, probably by way 
of the Schroon and the Boquet valleys to the settlement 
at Pleasant Yalley, and then eastward across the Black 
river to the highlands of Morgan's Patent. He lived 
at the place now called "Hoisington's," on ,the head- 
waters of the Hoisington brook, near the cemetery. It 
lies not far outside the northern limit of the Iron Ore 
Tract, a lonely place, hemmed in by mountains. The 
soil is light, and the elevation between five and six hun- 
dred feet. Here he "sat down," as the phrase went 
then, with his family of a wife and five little children. 
They afterward had seven more children, making in all 
a good old-fashioned family. 

Enos Loveland was born in Marlboro, formerly a part 
of Glastonbury, Connecticut, March 12, 176(5. Four 
generations of Lovelands, had lived in that town or 
near it, there being four Thomas Lovelands in the direct 
line of succession. After the Revolution Enos Love- 
land, like so many of the young men of New England, 
left his home to try new fortunes farther west. He 
was married at Speucertown, N. Y., Jan. 15, 1789, to 
Anna Finney, who was born at Warren, Conn., Jan. 25, 



194 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

1769. They lived for a time at Sand Lake, Rensse- 
laer county, and came to what ^vas then Elizabethtown, 
Essex county, in 1800. Enos Loveland soon became 
prominent in church and state, being a man of weight 
in the management of the Baptist church, and was 
elected Supervisor of the town for the years 1809, 1810 
and 1814. When Elizabethtown was divided in 1815, 
and the eastern part made into a new town with the 
name of Westport, Enos Loveland was the first super- 
visor, and the town records show that he held manj- 
C)ther offices. He died in 1844, and his wife in 1865." 

In the town records of 1801, in the accounts of the 
roads laid out in different parts of the township, there 
js mention of a "lake road," which may have run along 
the shore from north to south, and of another which 

*rhe children of Enos Loveland are as follows : 

Sylvia, born i"99, married for her first husband Marcus Hoisingrton and had 
one child, named Marcuf . She afterward became the second wife of Dr. Diadorus 
Holcomb, and had by him four children. 

Asa, born 1791, married Margiret Frasier. Went west. 

Erastus, born 179^, married Lucy Bradley. He was the father of Ralph A. 
Loveland, who represented the county of Essex in the Assembly and in the State 
Senate, and became a wealthy lumber dealer in Albany, Chicago, and in Saginaw, 
Mich, where he died in i899' 

Amanda, born 1791;, marri^ d Warren Harper. 

Lucetta, born 1767, was one of the early school teachers. She was twite 
married, first to Leman Bradley, second to Eben Egerton. 

Narcissa, born iSoo, after her parents came to this town, married Elijah Angier. 

Aretas, born 1803, married Emeline Manning. 

Then came two babies, one born in 1805 and the other in iSo5, both of whom 
were named Datus. The hrst Datus, who closed his eyes on this weary world at 
the age of four months, lies now under a tombstone bearing the earliest date of 
any which I have found in the township. The second Datus died at the age of five. 

Harriet, born 1S08, married James Stringham. 

Then there was an infant, born and died in iSio, and the youngest of the family 
\vas Enos, who died at the age o:^ twenty, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 105 

ran ''tlirougli xlnanias Rogers' clearing." This was 
probably a road connecting Pleasant Valley with North- 
west Bay, and it shows us how the settlement at the 
bay was commonly spoken of at that time, in popular 
disregard of the carefully surveyed streets of the Ana- 
nias map. 

But nevertheless, men of energy and foresight saw 
possibilities in the situation of the little clearing. 
Early in 1802 came a man who was destined to do much 
in furthering the fortunes of the place, bringing in the 
spirit of commerce, with its expression in the country 
store, and building mills and wharves as time went on. 
This man was Charles Hatch. Forty years after his 
coming to Westport he wrote, at the request of Dr. 
Sewall S. Cutting, then editor of the Neiv York Recorder, 
a letter descriptive of the place as he first saw it, which 
has fortunately been preserved. He begins : 

"Dear sir : — I now, agreeable to promise, commence a 
sketch of the early settlement of this country, but more 
particularly of the town of Westport. In the spring of 
1790 I moved to the settlement of Brookfield, which 
commenced in the spring of 1789, which place was then 
in the town of Willsborough, but now in the town of Es- 
sex. At that time ail the country west of me for 100 miles 
was an entire wilderness. I remained in Brookfield 
until 1802. During that time a settlement commenced 
in Pleasant Valley, now Elizabethtovvn, also in the sev- 
eral towns of Chesterfield by Isaac Wright, in Jay by 
Nathaniel Malery, in Keene by Benjamin Payne, in 
Bchroon by a Judge Pond. All commenced their im- 



196 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

provements and progressed rapidly. Our roads were 
•all to make anew. I helped look out the first road that 
led from Brookfield to the lake, a distance of sis miles. 
I drove the first loaded wagon from Brookfield to 
Pleasant Yalley, a distance of eight miles. 

"In the fall of 1801 I concluded to move to Westport, 
eight miles from my then residence, yet there was no 
road. I then harnessed my horses to a wagon, with 
four men with me, and in two days' time, with perse- 
verance, we reached Westport, my present residence, 
situated ten miles west of the City of Vergennes, in 
Vermont, and being on the west side of Lake Cham- 
plain." 

He does not mention his reason for leaving Brook- 
field, but to any one who knows his history it is plain 
that he foresaw no future for himself and his aptitude 
for business in a place like Brookfield, which has re- 
mained unto this day simply a stretch of farming coun- 
try, without even a post-office of its own. 

"Westport at that time was mostly a dense forest, 
with a few solitary settlements, without a road near 
the lake to Essex, the adjoining town north, and none 
to Crown Point, the then adjoining town south. We, of 
course, had no means of communicating with our 
neighboring towns but by water, and that {manusanpf 
indistinct) ferry com- 
menced by Piatt Rogers and John Halstead, another 
one two and one-half miles south, at Barber's Point, by 
Hezekiah Barber, which place bears his name. Still 
there was also a small improvement four miles south 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 197 

of the present Westport village, commenced by a man 
by the name of Raiment, which was the only improve- 
ment commenced before the Revolution in the present 
Westport. At the last mentioned place Raiment erect- 
ed a small mill, but it was all demolished when I moved 
into this place, except a shattered old house which 
was occupied by Benjamin Andrews. 

"The village of Westport is situated about nine miles 
north of Crown Point, on a pleasant Bay, and . . . 
had . . . three log houses, a saw mill, and a few 
scatering log houses in the backwoods." 

Watson, who probably received his information from 
the old Squire himself, says that he found here one 
frame house, three log houses, a saw mill and one barn. 
The frame house, and probably the barn, were John 
Halstead's, and the saw mill was built by Ananias Rog- 
ers. 

"The little partial improvementou the village ground 
was covered with dry Hemlock Trees, but the first set- 
tlers was a set of Hardy, Industrious men, and the 
wilderness soon became fruitful fields, and the improve- 
ments have progressed gradually. The great Iron Ore 
Bed, formerly called the Crown Point Ore Bed, is sit- 
uated in the south part of Westport, and is one of the 
most extensive mines of Iron in this Northern Iron re- 
gion. It was discovered soon after the Revolution, and 
fell into the hands of Piatt Rogers, who made some im- 
provements in raising. He employed a number of 
miners. Among the miners was a resjDectable English- 
man by the nanae of Walton, and some of his descend- 



198 BISTORT OF WESTPORT 

ants still remain in the same neighborhood, and some 
occupying the same ground, and enjoy a respectable 
place in society." 

He is mistaken in saying that the ore bed was "dis- 
covered soon after the Eevolution," as its existence was 
well-known to Philip Skene, and we have good reason 
to believe that this is why he desired the grant of the 
land from the king. It is an interesting fact that the 
Walton family of whom Judge Hatch speaks still oc- 
cupy the same place, on the road between Westport 
and Port Heniy. 

"In consequence of the Iron mine above named, and 
many others in the neighboring towns, there are many 
forges erected in almost every town in the county, and 
many of them bring their Iron into Westport for mark- 
et. The early settlers suffered many privations, it be- 
ing a time when all kinds of merchandise was very 
Dear, and no manufacturing near but what every Fam- 
ily did for themselves; no mills near. None knows 
the privations but those that tryed it, but the scene is 
niuch changed. We now find ourselves situated in a 
pleasant Village of about one thousand inhabitants, 
plentifully supplied with the necessaries of life, and 
many luxuries, having now a variet3^of faotorys, among 
others a furnace which makes from six to nine tons of 
Iron per day, and another furnace at Port Henry. Of 
the several Iron mines in Essex Co. the following is a 
part; 1st, in Westport. 2nd, in Moriah. 3rd, in Crown 
Point. 4th, in Elizabethtown, besides manv more, 
almost without number," 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 190 

The old Judge always writes the word "iron" with a 
capital, and well he might, for it had a great part iu 
the building up of his fortunes. In old mortgages of 
the time we often find it provided that the interest shall 
be paid "in good, merchantable, bar iron," to be deliv- 
ered at the store of Charles Hatch on such a day. Of 
course barter was the rule of trade in those days, as 
money was far too scarce to supply the demand for a 
medium of exchange, and no doubt a store-keeper with 
a good eye for the value of different kinds of produce, 
and a shrew^d knowledge of his market, gathered wealth 
all the sooner for that.^ 

In the same season that the possessions of Charles 
Hatch -were conveyed with so much labor through the 
w^oods from Brookfield to Northwest Bay, another party 
made its way iu the opposite direction to the falls on 
the Boquet. They crossed the lake, landed in the bay, 
and cut a road "four miles through the pine woods." 
They had come a long journey, from a town in the eas- 
tern part of Massachusetts. This was the party of 

♦Charles Hatch was born in 176S in Dutchess county, the son of Timothy Hatch 
and Eunice Beard*ley his wife, who had moved there from Connecticut. He came 
to Brookfield a young man of twenty-two, with a wife whose maiden name was 
Amy Low, and one child, Elizabeth or Betsey, who afterward married Samuel H. 
Farnsworth. Soon after his arrival his son Charles Beardsley Haich was born, 
and afterward succeeded to his father's business in VVestport, marrying Mar- 
garetta Ann Winans, daughter of James I. Winans by his first wife. The children 
of Charles B. Hatch were Perciva!, Winans, Mary Elizabeth, who married Amos 
Prescott, and Sarah, who married Edwin Prescott. In 1S20 Judge Charles Hatch 
married his second wife, Lydia B- Clark, sister of David Clark and half sister of 
Aaron B. Mack, and hdd twochildren, Eunice, afterward Mrs. Stoutenburgh, and 
Edwin. Late in life Judge Hatch married a third time, Maria, daughter of Jacob 
and Sarah Ferris, and she outlived him by twelve years. The old Squire died in 
5^56, aged eighty -eight. 



200 HISTORY OF WJSSTrORT 

Jesse BramaD. His people were early settlers in 
Norton, Mass., and had clung to the soil for four 
generations, so that it must have seemed a 
strange and daring thing to cut loose from every tie 
and face the long, rough journey into the depths of the 
wilderness of northern New York. Jesse Bi-aman's 
wife was Abiatha Felt, and her brother, Aaron Felt, 
also came from Temple, N, H., and settled at the falls, 
but it is not quite clear whether the two young couples 
came together, or whether Aaron Felt came somewhat 
later. Let us hope that they had the comfort of trav- 
eling together, that the discomforts and hardships of ■ 
the way might be the sooner forgotten. With what 
delight they must have stood at last upon the river 
bank and looked upon the beautiful foaming fall in the 
bend of the river, overarched by the giant trees of the 
primeval forest, conscious of their own ability to make 
use of all that beauty and power. The river was twice 
as full as we ever see it now, except in time of flood, 
and there was no bridge, no mill, no house, not even a 
tree cut on the bank. How much lovelier it must have 
been then, dashing downward over the rocks that made 
it musical, through the ancient forest to the lake ! 

But it is not likely that Braman and Felt stopped t(i 
admire the scenery much until they had raised a roof 
over the heads of their families. The first house, — a 
log cabin, of course,— was built on the bank, southwest 
of the fall. A clearing w^as made, and xiaron Felt built 
a grist mill, — how soon I do not know. His wife's 
miaiden name was Bachel Chase, and it is told that she 



HlfiTORY OF WESTPORT 201 

eonld run the ™ill as well as her husbaud and that 
,vhen it was necessary to carry the grain to the m 11 
, e shouldered the bag and walked across the one log 
hat bridged the space ^-etween the nvers bank and 
the mill, as fearlessly and securely as he. Such we, e the 
'jLeer women, and such they had need to be Abo^ 
1809 the Felts moved to Pleasant Valley, bu the Ura 
nans stayed in the place where they first settled. Jesse 
Bean's wife Abiatha had six ^biiclren, and the„ d^^ 
Then he married Marcia Rose, and she had se^en 
aSren. In those days a family of thirteen children 
considered only a comfortable 1-'"-'^; -- 
though the houses were so nnud, smaller than they aie 



now ^ 



Inother early settler was Samuel ^ebster^Felt who 
came like Aaron Felt, from Temple, N. H. He mainecl 
lT : Wheeler, in 1804, and they made the long jour- 
% to the Falls, but in a few months tune the young 
..,L died, and hers is said to have been he fir an 
val in the township. She was buried "near the big 
el" I am told, on the bank of the river, a htt e below 
i' present cemetery. This was the first burying- 
oround, but all traces of it are now renK,ved^ ^ 

same place. Jason mariied Laura Hubble ano qj j^^ daughters, 

Vau Ness, George, Estella. Lucy. Henry. J^" ^^ ^^J^J^a Helen mar- 
Asenath married Plat. Sheldon. Martha ">-";" ""J^^™™;",,, pi„„,er hving 
ried Thomas Felt, There are now over twenty descendants of t P ^^^ 

,„ town, in the families of Henry and James Braman, Henry 
jienter »nd Guy Frisbie. 



202 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

In 1808 or 1810 John Whitney came with his family 
from Springfield. Vt., and followed the newly cut road 
through the pine woods from the Bay to the Falls, 
choosing his farm about a mile above the falls, on the 
east side of the river. When he had prospered suffi- 
ciently to build himself a new frame house, and the 
neighbors were called in to help raise the frame, his 
principles forbade his following the general custom of 
giving the men liquor. Thence it was known as the 
first house in all this region which was "raised with- 
out rum." This house stood until December of 1901, 
when it was unfortunately destroyed by fire. The 
land has never been out of the family since it was 
first taken up by John Whitney, who was a de- 
scendant of that John Whitney who was born in Eng- 
land in 1589 and came to Watertown, Mass., in 
1635. This English John Whitney was a descend- 
ant of Sir Eobert Whitney, and through him the family 
claim kinship with English nobility, and even with 
royalty. Many of the family became distinguished in 
the new world. The father of our pioneer was Lemuel 
Whitney of Spencer, Mass., of whom it was said that 
he and all his brothers and brothers-in-law were in the 
Revolutionary army. His wife was Elizabeth Safford, 
born in Rowley, Mass., daughter of Daniel Safford, who 
fought in the Revolution, and afterward became one of 
the early settlers of the town of Essex.^ 

*John Whitney's seven children all settled in this new land which he had ehosen. 
His oldest daughter, Abigail, married Oliver H. Barrett, and had four sons. John 
Whitney Barrett died in Chicago in 1900. Benjamin Albert Barrett was a volun- 
teer in the Civil War, and is now a druggist in North Topeka, Kansas. Olivei 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 203 

The Hardy family also came to the banks of 
the Boquet very early. There were three brothers, 
Francis, Joseph and Benjamin, who came first and se- 
lected the home, then returned and brought their mother 
and sister Hannah, all the party traveling on horse 
back. This was about 1811. They settled a mile or 
so below the Falls, at the most southern bend in the 
river, Frances building on the west shore and Benjamin 
on the east. This land has never been out of the family 
since it was first taken up by the three brothers. 

Eeturning to the village at Northwest Bay and re- 
tracing a few years in time, we find the village rapidly 
increasing, as well as the outlying population. The 
fact that a man lived in the village was no proof that he 
was not a farmer. On the contrary, every one who 
owned anything at all owned laud to clear and cultivate, 
and as soon as the clearings were made fit for pastur- 
age,, and the wolves were subdued enough to make it 
possible to keep cattle, the village streets were lanes 

Dana Barrett, a graduate of the University of Vermont, practiced law in Wash- 
in2:ton, D. C.. from 1S67 until hir> death in igoi. Henry Safford Barrett is a farmer 
in Thomson, 111. 

L.emuel Whitney died in 1S3S, leaving no children. 

Thankful married Thomas Hadley and spent her life near her early home. 

Elizabeth married Benjamin S. Fairchild, of VVillsboro, and died recently, the 
last pensioner of the war of 1S12 in this section. 

Caroline married Laertius Tuttle of Essex. 

John Russell Whitney will always be known in the annals of Wadhams as "Dea- 
con Whitney, "holding that office in the Congregational church from his election in 
1S64, upon the death of Deacon Sturtevant, to his own death in iSSo. Of his chil- 
dren, two daughters married clergymen, one daughter prepared herself for teach- 
ing music, two sons have been in business, one was a missionary in Micronesia for 
ten years, and a son and a daughter still reside on the home farm. 

Joel French Whitney was a farmer and business man. Oce son resides at Wad- 
hams and two are in the west. 



204 . HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

through which the cows came home at nigjit. There 
liad been a saw mill on the brook as early as the ear- 
liest houses, and soon after there was a grist mill. 
There is an old "Agreement" between the miller and 
the mill owners which has been preserved, and though 
the date has been torn off, it seems to have been made 
out before 1807. The agreement is between Ananias 
and Piatt Eogers and Asa Durfee, and it sets forth 
that the owners "have let unto him the Grist Mill at 
Northwest Bay on Shares, each to have half the toll. 
And the Mill and Dam to be kept in repair by the said 
Asa, ordinary repairs of less than one dollar, at his 
own proper expense; and all extraordinary repairs of 
more than one dollar, (not occasioned by improper 
negligence of the said Asa,) are to be made by the said 
Ananias and Piatt at their proper charge and expense, 
for the Term of one year next ensuing the date hereof. 
On condition that the said x4.sa shall faithfully keep the 
said Mill and Dam in good repair as aforesaid, and well 
and truly perform all the duties of a skillful, trusty and 
obliging Miller." The miller was to have his house 
rent besides his half of the toll, and "the pastu)*e lot 
east of the road leading from the saw mill southward, 
the ensuing season, for three dollars and thirty-seven 
and a half cents for the season ; and also the new 
cleared ground on each side of the Mill brook to plant 
with Indian corn" on shares. "And also, one-half of 
the Grass lot wlierecm has been wheat the last season, 
south of the Mill brook," on shares. 

Thus we learn that they called the stream "Mill, 



inSTORY OF WSETPORT . 200 

Brook," and that Asa Diirfee was one of the first, if not 
the first miller. An old tombstone in the cemeter}^ 
reads "Ebenezer Durfie, a soldier of the Revolution. 
Died 1847, aged 86." Perhaps Asa Diirfee was his son. 
One of the first settlers at Northwest Bay was Ed- 
ward Cole, who came from Warren, Bhode Island, 
probably crossing the lake at Barber's Point, and bought 
land upon lot No. 14 of Skene's Patent, building his 
house at the top of the hill in the south part of the vil- 
lage, on the site so long occupied b}' Mr. Israel Patti- 
son. His wife's name was Sarah, and they brought 
with them seven children, all reared in the Baptist 
faith, and accustomed to consider their home the natu- 
ral abiding place of all Baptist preachers wlio came 
into the neighborhood.-* These preachers, as well as 
those of other denominations at times, broughtiuto the 
little lake shore settlement an influence distinctly felt, 
and one which had much to do in shaping the history 
of the town. 

♦Children of Edward Cole: 

1. Samuel married Rebecca Holcomb, daughter of Diadorus, and was the fath- 
er of S, Wheaton Cole of Cedar Bapids, Iowa, and of Emeline, who married 
William L. Wadhams, son of General Wadhams. 

2. Caleb married Eunice Hayes, and was the father of Harry, Albert, (maraied 
Julia Hickok,) Roby (married Mr. Douglas), Mary (married James A. Allen), and 
Roxy (married Diadorus Holcomb, Jr.) To Caleb descended the old place, built 
by Edward Cole. 

3. Paul died unmarried. 

4. Tillinghast married Caty Penny, and all their descendants now Hving^ in 
Westport are children and grandchildren of two daughters. Maria married Hez- 
ekiah Barber, (son of the first settler,) and their son Major still lives on the old 
Barber place at the Pomt. Another daughter of Tillinghast Cole, Pamelia, mar- 
ried Noel Merrill, and their son Henry, with his family, still live on the place 
where Tillinghast Cole first built his house, on the edge of "the Cedars." 

One of Edward Cole's daughters married Jeduthun Barnes, and another married 
a Culver, 



206 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

In 1807 the first church was organized, of the Baptist 
order, like the first church at Pleasant Yalley, organ- 
ized ten years before. Many of the early settlers came 
from the older colonies with certificates of church mem- 
bership carefully packed away among their household 
treasures — a "church letter," as it is called. One of 
the vows taken by a person joining a Baptist church is 
the promise that if he or she shall remove from the 
place, this letter shall be presented as soon as possible 
to some other church "of the same faith and order." 
Not finding such a church already constituted, your 
true Baptist sets to work to make one, and such was 
the task before a little body of Baptists who had come 
into the town. The civilizing influence of an organiza- 
tion pledged to religious observance and good behavior 
is especially needed in a new community, and the Con- 
gregational form of self-forming and self -ruling churches 
peculiarly well adapted to such conditions as are found 
on a new frontier. One article of Baptist belief is that 
which enjoins the faithful keeping of church records, 
and old "church books" are invaluable in local history. 
The records of this "Northwest Bay Church" as it was 
called, were well kept from the very beginning, and are 
exceedingly interesting. The first entry is dated March 
17, 1807, and begins: "A Meeting appointed by a num- 
ber of Baptist brethren on Morgan's Patent in Eliza- 
bethtowu." "On Morgan's Patent" is not as definite 
as we could wish, as it only indicates a region which is 
bounded, roughly speaking, within the triauge formed 
bv the Black river, the Ledge Hill road to Meigsville, 



ins TORY OF WE ST PORT 207 

^nd the turnpike. This stretch of farmini^ country 
was settled as early as any iu the township, and no 
doubt here was the greater weight of Baptist sentiment. 
We would like to have been told in whose house they 
niet, but it is no improbable guess that it was on the 
Hoisingtou place, where three roads come together, 
near the headwaters of the Hoisington brook. 

Here the church was formed with six iiiembers — four 
men aud two women. EJisha Collins seems to have 
been the leader and the one who kept the record. 
There were also Rupy, or Rupee Bacheljor, William 
Denton and James Hoysington. (This name, some- 
times written Hysonton, is, of course, the same tjiat we 
now spell Hoisii^gtou.) Then there were Sarah Ellis 
and Triphena Bachellor, the latter probably the wife 
of Rupee RaGhelior, At the next meeting two more 
women joined — Anna Jjoyejand, the wife of Enos I^over 
Jand, who jojued soon after, and Rhebe Fish. At 
another meeting Peter N. Fjsh, "Sister" Fish and Avis 
Hjsonton joined. In September the name of Joel Fin.- 
ney is added, and a meeting is appointed at his house 
"at Northwest Ray." Jn ISfovember was held the 
"council of sister chiirches" which js always necessary 
for the recognition of a ne^yly formed Baptist church, 
The council was fornied of delegates from four churches 
Already established, those of Pleasant Valley and Jay 
on this side the lake, and of Fanton and Bridport in 
Vermont. Tins Council, probably the largest public 
gathering up to that time, which had yet been held in 
Hie little settlement, "met according to appointment at 



208 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the dwelling house of Mr. John Halstead's at N. W. 
Bay." The "Mr." proves that John Halstead was not 
entitled to the prefix "Brother," given to all male 
church members, and the reason for the use of his 
house is simply that it contained the largest room in 
the village — the bar room, in the northwest corner. 
Not the shghtest incongruity was felt between the place 
and the solemn proceedings of the Council, nor was 
this a sign of the barbarism of the frontier. At that 
day, not one man in a hundred had any conscientious 
scruples on the subject of moderate drinking, and it 
was more than twenty years after this time that the 
first "temperance agitation" was begun. Drinking had 
not yet become a question of conscience. The man 
who drank too much was frowned upon by society and 
disciplined by the church, but the man who drank only 
a little was commended as the community ideal. 

This bar room was used occasionally afterward for 
other Councils and unusually large gatherings, but the 
regular meetings of the church were held at the houses 
of the difi"erent members. The one most frequently 
used in this way was Edward Cole. (From this fact 
arose the impression among some of the older mem- 
bers of the church, with whom I have talked, that the 
church was organized in his house, but the facts con- 
tained in the old records are exactly as I have given 
them.) 

In five years' time the church had increased to more 
than thirty members. There was no regular pastor. 
Occasionally one of the wilderness preachers, like Henry 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 209 

Chamberlain or Solomon Brown, who went about from 
church to church in northern Vermont and New York 
came to preach a sermon, or to observe the ordinances 
of communion or of baptism, stayed a few weeks and 
went on his way again. The most of the time the 
meetings were more like the modern "prayer meeting," 
with an equal opportunity given each member for ex- 
pression. This system brought out the natural leaders 
among them, whose gifts of prayer and exhortation 
grew with the using. Elisha Collins was evidently per- 
mitted to "improve the time" with more authority than 
any other, until Deacon Abuer Holcomb came, when 
the latter seems to have taken the first place. 

The clerks of the church were Elisha Collins, and 
then Peter N. Fish, Levi Cole, Joel Finney and Tilling- 
Last Cole, son of Edward Cole. Those who acted as 
deacons were Rupee Bacheller, Uriah Palmer, Horace 
Holcomb and Tillinghast Cole. Names of members 
added before 1812 were Ashbel Culver, Squire Ferris 
Nathaniel Hinkly, Tunis Van Yliet, — Hazelton, Piatt 
Halstead, Samuel Bacheller, Steven Collins, Titus 
Wightman. The women were Minerva and Lovina 
Collins, Rebecca Finney, Sarah and Charlotte Cole, 
Mary and Sally Culver, Diadama Ferris, Electa Van 
Yliet, Polly Hammond, Huldah Barber, Mind well Hol- 
comb, Elizabeth Barnes, Mehitable Havens. 

In the same 3^ear, on September 4, 1807, a most nota- 
ble event in the history of civilization occurred upon the 
Hudson river. It was the first entirely successful nav- 
igation by steam power ever accomplished. The C ler- 



210 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ynont, built hy Eobert Fulton, with the ^ssktanee and 
encouragement of Chancellor Livingston and of many 
of the business men living in towns along the Hudson^ 
made the trip from New York to Albany in thirty- two 
hours. One of the men on board the Clermont that 
day, and one who had been interested in every detail of 
the new invention from the first, was John Winans of 
Poughkeepsie. He belonged to one of the old, well-to-; 
do Quaker families of that region, and his sister, Mrs, 
Hannah Southwick, was a wellrknown Quaker preacher, 
Another sister, Polly, was Mrs. Darrell, and another 
married a Reynolds. His brothers were Stephen, who. 
lived in Poughkeepsie, and James, who married as his 
second wife Ida, daughter of Piatt Rogers, and came to 
live at Basin Harbor. John Winans, the most famous 
of the family, by reason of his connection with the 
beginnings of steam navigation, married a Dutch wo- 
man, Catrina Stuart, and seeing great possibilities in 
the applioation of the new power to. the means of 
transportation between New York and Canada, moved 
to Liake Chaniplain. Here he bi^ilt the second steam.^ 
boat in the world, and called it the Vermont, It was 
built in Burlington, by John Winans and J. Lough, and 
launched at the foot of King street in the spring of 1808. 
The Vermont was larger than the OlermQnt, being 120 
feet long, 20 feet wide, and 8 feet deep, with a speed of 
four miles an hour. The captain was John Winans 
himself, 9-nd the pilot Hiram Ferris of Panton, — a de- 
scendant, by the way, of that Ferris who entertained 
Benjamin FraukHiP. and the othQV Co^oin^issiop^eirs qi^ 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 211 

their way -to Canada in the spring of 1776. The Ver- 
mont began running regular trips in 1809, carrying pas- 
sengers and freight between Whitehall and St. John's. 
In the war of 1812 she carried government stores and 
soldiers, and once at least was in danger of capture by 
the British. She ran for seven years, being sunk near 
Isle Au Noix in October of 1815. Tlie next steamboat 
on the lake was the Fhoenix, but at Vergennes for the 
Champlain Transportation Company in 1815, and the 
third was another boat built by John Winans, the 
Champlain, launched at Vergennes in 1816. The Cham- 
plain, was smaller and swifter than the Vermont, and 
was burned at Whitehall in 1817. 

John Winans lived for some years at Ticonderoga, 
but when he died he was buried at Poughkeepsie. He 
had a sou, Stuart, and two daughters, Sarah, who mar- 
ried a Biogham, and Joanna Stuart, who married 
Thomas, son of Ebenezer Douglass, and spent 
her early married life in Westport. Joanna was the 
youngest child of John Winans, and it was his fancy to 
take her with him on the first trip of the Vermont, a 
little girl carrying her kitten in her arms. She made a 
most remantic marriage, at the age of fifteen years and 
six months, to Thomas Douglass, only a few years older 
than herself. It is told that he fell in love with her 
when he first saw her, a little barefoot girl in her fath- 
er's orchard, when both the Winans and the Douglass 
families lived in Ticonderoga. A daughter of Thomas 
Douglass and Joanna Winans, Kate, born in Westport 
in 1825, and now Mrs. James A. Allen, has kindly given 



"^12 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

me these details. Other children of Thomas Douglass- 
were Elizabeth, afterward Mrs. Saxe, Mary, and Gib- 
son, the latter now living in Buffalo. 

It was indeed a wonderful day when the Vermont 
steamed for the first time up through the Narrows, past 
Rock Harbor, across the bay and on past Barber's 
Point, on her way to Whitehall. When the wind was 
fair the ferry boats out-sailed her, but well knew all 
these New England men, with their natural insight into 
the power of mechanic forces, that the day of the sail- 
ing boat was over. There are amusing stories of the 
first steamboat on the Mississippi river, and the terri- 
fied darkies, who believed it the actual presentment of 
the Evil One, fiery-eyed and snorting, walking on the 
water, but there was no one on our shores, we may be 
sure, whose imagination was thus excited by the ad- 
vent of the puffing and churning little Vermont. 
Bather the keen-eyed Yankees went down to the 
Point to see her go by, and tried to explain to the 
boys who stood with them how the steam inside the 
boat made the paddle-wheels go round. The early 
steam -boats seldom or never made shore landings, even 
after wharves were built, but stopped outside and sent 
off a small boat to the shore with passengers or freight. 
This must have been due to timidity on the part of the 
pilot, and perhaps the timidity was due to the lack of 
charts in which complete confidence could be placed. 

In this same eventful year of 1807 the county seat 
was changed from Essex to Elizabethtown, where it 
has remained ever since. The change from the extreme 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 218 

eastern edge of the couDtj to a point nearer the centre 
shows a thickening of the population away from the 
lake. While this change vastly increased the import- 
ance of the settlement at Pleasant Yailey, it also 
brought a double stream of commerce and travel to 
Northwest Bay. 

In 1808 the last patent of Westport land was 
granted, — the smaller Jonas Morgan patent, contain- 
ing seven hundred acres, and lying in the northwest 
corner of the township. Only about half of the patent 
is on our side of the Black river, the other half lying in 
Elizabethtown. It lies west of the McCormick patent, 
and its southwest corner touches the north line of the 
larger Jonas Morgan patent, granted in 1799. Jonas 
Morgan had already built a forge on the Black river, 
at the place which we now call Meigsville, on the west- 
ern shore, which was the first forge on that river. 
This he sold to Jacob Southwell. 

The Act of the Legislature granting the smaller pat- 
ent, April 28, 1808, runs as follows : 

"Whereas it hath been represented to the Legislature 
by Jonas Morgan and Ebenezer W. Walbridge in their 
petition that they have it in contemplation to erect 
works of different kinds for the manufacture of iron, in 
Elizabethtown in the county of Essex, and on account 
of the great expense and risk attending the erection of 
such works they have prayed for legislative aid ; 

"And whereas the erection of such works, and espe- 
cially of a furnace for casting of pig-iron, hollow ware 
and stoves, in that part of the state, where iron ores of 



214 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the best quality and the materials for working the same 
are abundant, would be so beneficial to the state at 
large, and particularly to the northern part of it, as 
justly to entitle such an undertaking to encouragement 
and aid from the Leglislature ; 

"And whereas it is also represented, that there is a 
tract of vacant laud belonging to the people of this 
state, lying in the town of Elizabethtown aforesaid, on 
the north side of a tract of land belonging to the said 
Jonas Morgan, on which he has already erected a forge, 
and adjoining to the same, which will be useful, and in 
time perhaps absolutely necessary for carrying on the 
contemplated works to advantage, therefore"— the state 
not only granted Morgan and Walbridge the land, but 
lent them three thousand dollars for the prosecution of 
the work, on condition that the furnace be running 
within three years, a condition which was probably ful- 
filled, since we find mention of "Morgan's New Forge" 
in the town records of 1815. Whether he really cast 
stoves and hollow ware I do not know, nor whether he 
made or lost a fortune on the banks of the Black river. 
Before 1818 he had sold out to Brainard and Mitchell, 
who built a grist mill a little further down on the east 
side, and since that time the place has always been 
known as Brainard's Forge. Mr. Wallace Pierce, to 
whom I am indebted for much information in regard to 
the Black river country, had the impression that al- 
though the dam went out in the great freshet of 1830, 
the forge was not carried away. Mr. Pierce also told 
me this story about Jonas Morgan. "The south line of 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 215 

his smaller patent and the north line of his larger pat- 
ent are about a half mile apart. In building his dam 
at Brainard's Forge he flooded this strip of state land, 
and at once appHed for another grant, asking for a 
thousand acres more, claiming that he had flooded 
that much state laud. An engineer was sent from Al- 
bany who scaled Morgan's pond and found only eighty- 
four acres of state laud covered with water, a patent for 
which he received in 1810." 

It seems to have been in 1808 that the first Justice 
of the Peace was appointed for our side of the river, an 
official quite necessary for the adjustment of small dis- 
putes and for the transaction of ordinary legal busi- 
ness. The appointee was Piatt Rogers, Jr., and it may 
be assumed that his justice courts were held in the bar- 
room of the inn of his brother-in-law, John Halstead. 
The first book containing the records of the Baptist 
church was presented to that body by Piatt Rogers, 
who probably held a strict monopoly of the trade in 
blank books at this time. 

It was also in 1808 that James W. Coll came from 
Ticonderoga and settled at the mouth of the Raymond 
brook, building his mills where Raymond had built 
his before him. Here a thriving colony soon sprang 
up, its population for some years exceeding that of 
Northwest Bay, with a saw mill, a grist mill, lime kilns, 
a blacksmith shop and a brickyard. Coll built his 
house a little way north of the mill site, on the corner, 
where it still stands, with its massive square timbers, 
cut from the trees of the forest primeval. It was a red 



216 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

house with loDg, sloping roof, with a great chimuey and 
fireplaces, and was used, like so many of the pioneer 
houses, as an inn. The house, with all the land of the 
neighborhood, now belongs to the Westport Farms. 

James W. Coll was born in 1783, came here a young 
man twenty-five years old, and lived to the age of nine- 
ty. He must have visited these shores some years be- 
fore his final settlement, since he was accustomed to 
say that he saw Northwest Ba}^ when the only house 
there was built of logs and thatched with bark. He 
had two brothers, Samuel and Levi, who came and set- 
tled near him at Coil's Bay. Notice that the name is 
Coll, and not Cole. They were not at all related to the 
family of Edw^ard Cole, who lived at Northwest Ba}^ 
The disentanglement of these two names in the history 
of the town would be to a stranger a hopeless task, as 
both Colls and Coles were exceedingly numerous, and 
the pronunciation exactly the same. It is of the less 
importance to-day since there is not a single person in 
town now bearing either name since the recent death 
of Hinkley Coll, who was the son of Levi Coll. Coil's 
Bay is often mis-spelled on the maps as "Cole's," the 
distinction being too fine for the average engraver to 
apprehend. In the county atlas it is OdelFs Bay, this 
name being sometimes heard, from a family who seem 
to have lived at the bay in early times. "^ 

^James W. CoH bad four children. Thomas went west, 
and lived in Cleveland, Ohio; Polly married Wasbinafton 
Lee, of Moriab; Elinor married Israel Pattison,aud Isabei 
married James H. Farosworth. All the desceudants of 
James W. Coll now living in Westport are children and 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 217 

grandchildren of his daughters Elinor and Isabel. The 
family of Hinkley Coll is now represented by his daughter 
Susan, who married Adelbert Sherman, and his grand- 
daughter Bessie Sherman. 

About 1810 Joseph Jenks came from Pleasant Valley, 
where he had settled iu 1804, coming there from Nine 
Partners, Dutchess county, a place well-lNiaown as a 
stronghold of the Friends, or Quakers. The Jenks 
family held this serene and unwarlike faith, and had 
come to Dutchess county from Rhode Island. Joseph 
Jenks became a man of consideration in Pleasant Vallev, 
was appointed Justice of the Peace and Assistant 
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, March 27, 1805, 
and advanced to First Judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas April 6, 1811. He died at Northwest Bay in 1815, 
and was buried in the "south burying ground." His 
wife's name was Hannah. His daughter Mary married 
Ira Henderson, who was born near Fort Ann, Washing- 
ton county, in 1791, and came to Northwest Bay from 
Whitehall before 1815. Their children were : George, 
who married Clarissa Richards, and went west before 
the war ; Elvira, (Mrs. Andrews); Caroline, (Mrs. Big- 
alow, of Chicago); and Mary Ann, who married William 
Richards, son of Cyrus Richards, and has always lived 
in Westport. 

The children of William and Mary Ann Richards : 

1. Henry H. married Clara Ensign, and had one son. 
b'rea. After the death of his hrst wife he married Electa 
Boyntou, daughter of J. S. Boynton of Jay. 

2. Fred married Alice Sweatt, daughter of Frank Sw^eatt 
of Wadhams. He was accidentally thrown from a buggy, 
receiving injuries from which be died. 



218 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

3 Frances mavvied Montforcl Weed, and has two chil- 
'^T^li^Ua'^^n-i^dl^erHUClavk, and has thvee daugh- 
ters. Jessie, Florence, and Cornelia. 

Cyras Richards came from southern Vermont as . 

-1 .^ffUrl -It Barber's Point, aiterward 
young man, and settled at i^aiuei 

•^ ^T i.1 4- Po^r Hp married Isabella Mac- 

movine to Northwest bay. tie mame 

Oonlev, siste.- of Mrs. Ja.es W. CoU^The MacCouleys 
were Scotch, and lived at Coil's Bay^ One of the 
daughters .uarried a McKenzie of Po.t Henry. 

The children of Cyros If ^J^a^ls : Samanthamar- 

WilUam married Mai'V Auq '^^"''f ' = ' , ; ^ Frisbie. SOQ 

ned .lohn R. xNiehols. Ei'|a mar ed fic eluah ^ -^^ ^_^^ 

In 1810 occurred the survey of the Iron O.-e T.act 
called the '"Kellogg survey," rendered so d,tficu o 
the surveyors employed because of «- yar.at.ons rn l.e 
magnetic needle caused by the attra-trou of the non 
„,e in the rocks and mountains. There .s an interest- 
ing old map of this Tract, then lying in two townships 
Moriah and Elizabethtowr,. The n.ap, now hanging ni 
Ue village Library, gives us the old name ot N.cho 
Pond, Spring Pond, indicating that the -u- of i^ 
water is to be found in a number of springs in the bot 
IL Other ponds are shown where the latest survey- 
hows only a marsh. Perhaps ^''^^^^^ ^'^^'f ^^ 

of forest cutting will ^^^ -:^- :;:^;;^:^ 

1779. There are 234 lots in this great tract, and som. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 219 

of tliem are marked with the names of owners, in many 
cases quite illegible. Six lots in the eastern part are 
marked "Stacy," ten lots "Noble," two "Douglass," one 
"C. Hatch" and three "C. B. Hatch." "Essex Court 
House" stands at Pleasant Valley, and the roads all 
run very much as they do to-day, with some small dif- 
ferences which are interesting as showing the trend of 
early settlement. The map seems to have been used 
by the committee which divided the towns in 1815, and 
it is probable that it once belonged to Squire Hatch. 

That there was a school-house at Northw^est Bay be- 
fore 1811 is proved by a receipt found among the pa- 
pers of Peter Ferris, which runs as follows : 

"Eeceived of John Ferris ten dollars in full for two 
Rights in the school-house at Northwest Bay, which I 
authorize said Ferris to occupy or dispose of for his 
own proper use, as I myself could do. Witness my 
hand, signed at Elizabethtown, this 10th day of Sep- 
tember, 1811. 

Signed, Levi Cole. 

This John Ferris must have been the father of Peter 
Ferris, often called "John Ferris, Jr.," to distinguish 
him from his father, John A. Ferris. John Ferris, Jr. 
married the widow of Rowland Nichols, whose maiden 
uame was Patience Cole, and wdio married Rowland 
Nichols Oct. 24, 1802, at Pittstown, Rensselaer county, 
as her wedding certificate attests. This brings in a 
family of Coles entirely separate from the faoiily of 
Edward Cole, and whose names recurring in town and 
church records add to the confusion in i^eaard to this 



■220 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

surname. The father of Patience Cole seems to have 
^n Luben, a sea captain who t.-led Jrom New YoH. 
to the West Indies, and whose quaint silver watch de- 
Tce^ecUo Peter Ferris. There was a Calamus Cole 
in this family, but in what relationship I ea-ot ^ I 

.„. also very much V--^^ :^ ^"^ ^J^^ 

There was a "Squire Ferris," and a D adama Fei i. 

alng the early members of the Baptist church, but 

i have not been able to connect them with any succeod- 

ntTe rl No doubt there is some one m town who 

odd disentangle all these threads and lay them out in 

;:;;ect oX, but I have not yet h.d the good fortune 

tvo aDoeal to the right one. 

„™ the .»1..« »orJ=. of Sk...e-. P.u»l, • lit* 
„":»,.■«. o> .!„ B.,. Th. pl.« i. ..o. o».n.=J ^ 

was married three times, his first wile being bally ^ai 
Z Lighter of Hezekiah. Her children were baman- 
',:: tho-marned Dan Kent, and Hajdal. who mai-rie. 

.coiburn. ^.'---i^;;:;:::;tr:eLa:::ia, 

been able to discover, but hei .childi ^ 

Oharlotte, Sarah and Rensseaer. The tin d 

Nancy Chandler and her children were Caiohne, y 

Ann and Jane. . .. -, 

Gideon Hammond was a prominent , nan in hi. day, 



ITTSTORY OF WSETPORT 2^21 

supervisor, Member of Assembly, and the incumbent 
of many other pubHc offices. He was elected deacon of 
the Baptist church in 1817, and filled that office until 
his death in 1816. He dealt largely in lumber, sending 
out great rafts to Canada and later to >Jew York. He 
also collected herds of cattle and drove them to the 
south, sometimes taking them as far as New York, fol- 
lowing them on horseback or on foot, a journey of weeks. 
These droves of cattle or sheep were a feature of the 
life before the railroad came, every summer seeing the 
passage of many of them through our streets. Mrs. 
Harriet Sheldon remembers her father, Hezekiah Bar- 
ber, accompanying Gideon Hammond on one of these; 
trips, rendered memorable by the red cashmere dress 
brought back to the little girl from the great city. After 
the Deacon's death, the Hammonds led a large party of 
emigrants to Iowa, then considered the far, far west. 
Another prominent famil}^ was that of the Holcombs. 
i The name of Deacon Abner G. Holcomb is first found 
I in the church records in 1812. He came from Dan- 
1 bury, Connecticut, with his wife, Mindvvell, and accom- 
panied or followed by four children, Horace, Wealthy, 
Jonathan and Diadorus. Horace went west and died 
in Ohio at the age of eighty-six, Wealthy married Cal- 
vin Hammond, and Jonathan, commonly remembered 
as "Uncle Jock," lived all the latter part of his life at 
iuisin Harbor. Of all the family, that one who seems 
tn have had the- most varied and interesting career was 
Diadorus. He was the fii'st physician at Northwest 
i Bay, and the only one for many years. He and Dr. 



222 HISTORY OF WSSTPOh'T 

Alexander Morse of Pleasant Valley rode over all the 
ooantry fro.n the mountains of Keene to the lake shore, 
with their official saddle-bags, carrying help and heal- 
ing to a people who ,>ften sorely needed both. No one 
ail better or more unselfish work in the pioneer days 
than these early doctors, whose medical education was 
usually obtained by reading in the office ot -'-«.°'^ - 
practitioner. Dr. Holcomb was Surgeon s Mate m the 
H7th regiment in the war of 1812, and did good service 
at the battle of Plattsburgh, being afterward promo- 
ted Surgeon of his regiment. He was a Free Mason, 
and the mvstic symbol of the order is cut upon his 
tombstone," which also states that he was l-"-" ^o- 
necticut, Feb. 2, 1780, and died m Westport, Sept io 
18.59. He was appointed Justice of the Peace m 1811 
and in 1814, and in 1815 Assistant Judge of the Court ot 

Com 111 ou Pleas. 

Diadorus Ho.comb's tirst wife was Syb.l ^^^^J^ 

Pautoo.Vt. After l^^« ^u fl^^^e^-^ 1««^' ^""^ '^'"''"^ 
-^jSr Sf :l^r^£f --- Bay,^w.^^^ 

^^.i-firis!^:sk°LS|^^.£-ndt«o 

little girls who were .'^^'°/' ^^^'j\' ^,^„''' vho was the 
widower married again a .youns ^ ' " ^.^^ gylvia, 

oldest daughte, of Eoos LoveUmd. He name wa y ^^^^ 
and her tirst husband was .Maicus l^ -^»;^ ' ^^^ four 
she had one child, Marcus By Dr. " l^^"™" g ^^ ^1. 
children. William Henry Harr.^ou 1 > "M' J^ « h,,,^^.^^ 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 223 

3. Lucinda married first a Ferris aad afterward Isaac 

4. Diadorus, Jr., married twice, aud eacla time a Cole. 
The first wife was Roxy, daughter of Caleb Cole ; the 
second was Maria Samaotha, daughter of a Dr. Cole, not 
at all related to the Coles previously mentioned. 

5. Maria married Harry J. Persons. 

6. Minerva married William J. Cutting. 

7. William married an Everest. 

8. Franklin was in business in Westport for some years, 
but I cannot find whom he married. 

9. Henry Harrison married Aurilla, daughter of Darius 
Ferris, He was the last survivor of this family, dying in 
1902, aged eighty-six. 

10. Almira married Warren Cole. 

Though Levi Frisbie came with his brother-in-law, 
Hezekiah Barber, in 1785, and helped him to clear the 
ground and build a shelter for his family, he returned 
to Connecticut at the end of the season, and did not 
come to make a permanent settlement upon Bessboro 
until after the death of Hezekiah Barber in 1810. He 
was here before 1812, and lived for a time in the house 
with bis sister, the original log cabin having been given 
up for a comfortable frame house a little farther back 
from the lake. This house is completely gone at the 
present writing, but one need not be very old to re 
member it as the one called "the old Young house." 
Jerusha, oldest daughter of Hezekiah Barber, married 
Alexander Young, and to her fell the house at Barber's 
Point; hence its name. Levi Frisbie built his own 
house, a log cabin, on the lake road, about half way be- 
tween the Point and Northwest Bay. His land lay in 
the extreme northwest corner of Bessboro, and the road 
from the Point ran along below the ledge, passing to 
the east of his house. He had been a captain of mili- 



224 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



tia iu Connecticut, and when the war ot 1812 broke ut 
he organized and commanded a company m t ub town 
.hichdid good service, especially at the bat le o 
Plattsburgh, where the gallant captam 1-';. 'ousta 
the first town election, in 1815, he was elected cons U 
bl and collector, offices to which he was annna b 
elected for thirteen years. In 1816 a new school d^- 
trict was formed, and the "stone school house budt 
far from the captain's home. Kow the capta^ was 
a man accustomed to command, on the battle-hel o 
in the neighborhood, and was perhaps somewhat aibi ■ 
tary At any rate, there was a famous "school lK,a e | 
var" over the new school house, and the story wall al- T 
wavs be told of the wrath of Captain Fr,sb.e when he 
:: ou - oted m school meeting. The point ot d,spn e 
I never learned. Perhaps he objected to hav.ng the 
windows put in so high from the ground that no ^nor- 
tal child could ever see out of them unless 1- ^ -J - 
top of a desk. If so, I wish the captain might ha^e 
lad 1 is way. But he was worsted, and his vengeance 
tts a complete withdrawal from all school disric 
Ltters from that time henceforth and to •».. the s on 
.chool house was as a thing which had no «-'--' j^ 
the last day of his life. In the same year 1816 Cap 
tain FrisbiJand his wife were very active m the orm - 
tion of the Methodist church, he being * - J- <= - 
leader, and a firm supporter of the church all bis 1 e^ , 
In 1840 he built him a new house, of the stone ot the 
nei borhood. choosing a spot a little f-ther wes t an 
hi^first location. By th.s time the road below the 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 225 

ledge was not so much used, and the highway ran as we 

now see it. Before the old captain could move into his 

new house he was taken sick and died. The new house 

Avas occupied by the family, and afterward Levi Fris- 

bie, third of the name, owned it, until a few years ago 

it was sold to Professor Marks of Philadelphia. 

The name of Captain Frisbie's wife was Sally Johnson. 
When they came into town they brought with themafamily 
of eight children, and three more were born after the}^ 
settled here. These are their names: 

1. Levi, born 1794^, died when a young man. 

2. Willard, b. 1798, married Ann Knapp, half sister of 
Guy Stevens. Guy Frisbie of this place, is his son. 

'^. William, b. 1801, married Mary Peck; second, Mary 
Orr. 

4. Sally, b. 1803, married first, 'Daniel Clark ; second, 
Mr. Mclntyre. Her daughter Harriet Clark married Aaron 
Clark, son of David. 

5. Andrew, b. 1805, married Sally Nichols. Three of 
their children with their families, are now living in town ; 
Henry, married Ruth Greeley; Catherine, married George 
Pattison; Mina, married Henry Warren. 

6. Anna, b. 1807, married Benjamin Beers. 

7. Jerusha, b. 1809, married Reuben Nichols. 

8. Hezekiah, b. 1811, married TCliza Richards. 

9. Emeline, b. 1813, married Dan Piatt Pond, whose 
father. Captain Jared Pond, was on the battle-field of 
Plattsburgh with Captain Frisbie. 

10. Maria, b. 1815, married George C. Whitlock. 

11. Levi, b. 1818, married Julia Reed. Their children, 
William, Fred and Belle, (Mrs. Charles Sprague,) lived for 
years in Westport. 

One of the earliest settlers was Timothy Sheldon, 
who bought his land in the south part of Bessboro, and 
who now lies buried in the cemetery at Mullein brook. 
One of his sons was Otis Sheldon, and another son was 
named after Piatt Rogers, who must have beeu carry- 
ing on operations at his ore bed on the shore of the 



226 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

lake at about the time that Timothy Sheldon settled 
here The WiUsboro Sheldons came from Dutchess 
county, and it is probable that Timothy Sheldon also 
came from down the Hudson. Piatt Rogers Sheldon 
was the father of Henry Sheldon. 

The Lows hved on the back road, on the farm now 
owned by Henrv Sheldon. The daughters were Sally 
and Clarissa, and the sons Wilson, Nelson and John 
Hatch Low. The latter married Eliza, daughter ot 
Roderick Eising. 

Joseph Fisher came in early, and built a mill on 
Mullein brook. His son Charles had four daughters, 
Lillian, Cvnthia (Mrs. Samuel Boot), Jerusha (Mrs. 
Mansfield Howard), and Sally (Mrs. Dorr Howard). 

WiUardSnow was a boatman, and lived at Barbers 
Point in a log house on the shore, near the place where 
the lighthouse now stands. He ran the ferry for "the 
widow Barber" after her husband died, and in 1824 
moved to Canada. 

In the BeyetBe of Nov. 24, 1813, appears an advertise- 
ment signed Nathaniel Hinkley, in which he solicits 
patronage for a new ferry boat just built, saying that he 
has "been to great expense to erect a suitable TV harl 
about one hundred and fifty rods south of the old one 
"owned and kept by the Widow Barber." The sloop 
"Hunter," N. Hinkley, cleared at the custom house m 

1811. , , . 

A large proportion of our earliest names are found lu 
the highlands of the Black river country. Jacob South- 
well was elected Assessor in 1798, and hved on the 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 227 

Black river, his name being perpetuated by the forge on 
that stream which he is said to have bought of Jonas 
Morgan. 

Sylvanus Lobdell was the first clerk of the new town 
of Elizabethtown, elected 1798, and was probably 
father of Bouton and of Captain John Lobdell. Bouton 
Lobdell lived for some time at Northwest Bay, and was 
first clerk of the new town of Westport, 1815. 

xA.t the town meeting of 1798 Norman Newell was 
elected Assessor, and E. Newell school commissioner 
and one of the overseers of highways. In 1801 Ebe- 
nezer Newell was appointed Justice of the Peace. The 
Newells seem to have moved from Pleasant Valley to 
Northwest Bay, and later Elijah Newell kept nn inn on 
the north side of the brook, on Pleasant street. 

The name of Joel Finney is first mentioned in the 
Baptist church book in 1807, and soon after the church 
was meeting at his house "at Northwest Bay." He 
seems afterward to have lived on Morgan's Patent, and 
was buried iu the Black river cemetery. He was re- 
lated to Anna Finney, wnfe of Enos Loveland. 

Joseph Stacy owned large tracts of land along the 
upper course of the Stacy or Raymond brook, in the 
John Williams patent and in the Iron Ore Tract. He 
had a mill on the brook, and his house stood where 
Abram and John Greeley lived for some time, the place 
now^ owned by Mr. Thomas Lee. 

The Nichols family went still deeper into the 
mountains for their home, settling at the place where 
the trail from Spring Pond comes out to the highway. 



■228 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

on the farH> recently sold by Ed. McMahon to Thoma. 
Lee The pond has since been called Nichols pond be- 
cause thev lived near it. In the Hoisington cemetery 
an ancient stone records the death of Benjamin Nrch- 
ols, aged 46, died 1817, and doubtless he was the pi- 



oneer. 



The nearest neighbors ol the Nichols, a little to the 
south, were the Harpers, and Joseph Storrs, John 
Stringham and Abram Slonghter are all named as ear y 
settlers, living on Morgan's Patent. Elizabeth Slough- 
ter was buried in the Hoisington cemetery in 1813. Al 
these names are found in the old book of the Baptis 
church, and we know that when the Hammonds went 
to Iowa, sometime in the fifties, the Sloughters and he 
Nichols and the Stacys went with them, seeking a ncher 
and a deeper soil than their forefathers had chosen 

'^This finishes mv attempt at giving a list of the family 
names of people who lived in Westport before the war 
of 1812 No one will expect me to perform any such 
historical teat as making the list absolutely exhaustive. 
These names, with an outline of the principal public 
events in the town, are enough to form a very inter- 
esting and suggestive picture of the beginnings of our 
town life, which, in the mind of any one tamihar with 
its later years, will be filled out with many vivid de- 
tails, irresistibly suggested. 

Two men who were never residents of our town have 
still had so strong an influence upon its history and its 
fortunes that the story would not be complete with- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 229 

out mentiouing them. One was ijie Eev. Cyrus Com- 
stock, the missionary preacher, and the other was 
William Ray, editor of the first local newspaper which 
ever recorded events in the town. Both men left an 
impress upon the place far deeper than that made by 
scores of the more commonplace people who had act- 
ual residence upon the soil. 

It must have been about the year 1811 that "Father 
Comstock" first saw these shores, perhaps coming into 
Essex county by way of Northwest Bay. He came as 
a missionary into a wild and untaught region, almost 
destitute of churches or of any form of religious in- 
struction, sent out by the Berkshire Missionary 
Society of Massachusetts to teach and to preach, and 
to establish churches of the form of New England Con- 
gregationalism. In this work he spent the remainder 
of his life, coming into the county a man of forty-six, 
and living to be eighty-eight. He was born in the west- 
ern part of Connecticut, a region from which the fami- 
lies of Barber, Frisbie, Holcomb, Loveland and Wad- 
hams, the Nobles of Essex and the Lees of Lewis, as 
well as WilHam Ray of Pleasant Valley, all came origi- 
nally. He found in the township of Elizabethtown two 
feeble little churches of the Baptist order, one at Pleas- 
ant Valley and one at Northwest Bay, with no regular 
preaching, holding their meetings at the houses of the 
few members or in school-houses. It would seem that 
the good man rejoiced as much over this seed already 
sown as though he had been the gardener, and had 
scattered it by means of the sound Congregational ser- 



230 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

mons which he carried in his own saddle-bags, as it is 
told that he preached to the Baptist congregations as 
often as he came, and was loved and looked up to, and 
called "Father Comstock" by them as much as by the 
Congregational churches which he founded in other 
places. There is a tradition, and we have little doubt 
that it is a true one, that he founded a church at the 
Falls in 1813, but as no records are left, it is impossi- 
ble to know the true history of it. It is certain that he 
often preached there and that the church established 
in 1827 owed its existence to his influence, and to the 
teaching which the people had heard for years from 
his lips. He made himself universally respected and 
loved, and had great reward in that his name is never 
mentioned but with pride and afl'ection through all 
the region in which he lived and worked. When his 
gravestone was blown down in a great gale, nearly fifty 
years after his death, there was at once a movement to 
raise a subscription for a new one, since he had left no 
children nor relatives to perform that duty. He it was 
who invented the "buckboard," long called the "Com- 
stock wagon," and our older people delight to recall 
him as he jogged over the country in this conveyance. 
In the fall of 1809 came a remarkable man to settle 
in Pleasant Valley, choosing the stir and importance 
of the County seat as a place where a man of talent 
might expect to prosper. He had had a most unusual 
and exciting career. Born in Salisbury, Conn., his 
father had moved into Dutchess county, New York,and 
there William Bay began life as a school teacher, but 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 231 

soon left this occupation to try his hand "in busi- 
ness." Failing utterly, and driven hard by his credi- 
tors, he enlisted in the navy as a common seaman on 
board the P7a7afZe?jjAia, Captain Bainbridge, then bound 
for the Mediterranean, A midshipman on the same 
ship was Thomas Macdonough, then twenty years of 
age. He too was destined afterward to see Lake 
Champlain. Arrived in the Mediterranean a Moorish 
prize was captured, and Midshipman Macdonough was 
put in charge of the prize and sent home with it, thus 
escaping the fate of those left on board the Philadelphia, 
which ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli, October 
31, 1803, and was captured with all onboard. William 
Ray was thus a captive in Tripoli for nineteen months, 
aud upon his release and return to the United States 
he published a book relating the story of his captivity. 
To-day the record of such an experience, told as well 
as William Ray told it, would sell in repeated editions, 
but "The Horrors of Slavery," published in Troy 
in 1808, made Ray neither famous or wealthy, and 
the next year we find him making a hazard of 
new fortunes in this northern region. He lived at 
Pleasant Valley for about three years, how, we 
cannot tell, but evidently not in prosperous circum- 
stances, as appears from the letters he was contin- 
ually writing to the Governor, begging for some ap- 
pointment. At that time the County Clerks were not 
elected, as they are now, but appointed, and William 
Ray urged his claims to that office with a persistency, 
a clearness and vigor of statement, and a variety of ex- 



232 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

pression which would have made his fortune as a twen- 
tieth century newspaper reporter. He is immensely 
like Dickens' Micawber, with his perennial poverty 
and his tremendous gifts for letter writing, but without 
Micawber's charming and irresponsible hopefulness. 
"Sir," he writes to Governor Tompkins in 1811, "Every 
letter I write to your Excellency I make a sacrifice of 
my pride to the strong impulse I feel to communicate 
my sentiments. I am not unconscious, Sir, that too 
much familiarity between characters so widely discrim- 
inated would be incompatible with the dignity of your 
superior station — of your exalted merits — I trust there- 
fore your Excellency will not attribute my correspond- 
ence to vain or ostentatious conceits ; but will indulge 
me with the innocent gratification of unburthening a 
mind oppressed with the weight of its own comparative 
unworthiness." Do office-seekers write to the Gover- 
nor like that nowadays ? He makes many allusions to 
the, men active in Essex county politics at that tiuie, 
which makes his letters (discovered iu the mass of 
Tompkins' Papers purchased by the state in 1885) very 
interesting reading. He mentions Judge Joseph Jenks, 
who had not at that time moved to Northwest Bay, as 
one of his warmest friends and supporters. In April 
of 1812 he made his deepest mark upon our history. 
Writing to the Governor he says : "Sir : I enclose you 
the first paper ever printed in this County. The pro- 
prietors have placed me at the head of its editorial de- 
partment, associated with Ezra C. Gross, Esquire, a 
young gentleman of sound principles aud excellent tal- 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 2H3 

ents." The name of the paper was the Reveille, a happy 
choice, especially in view of the impending w^ar. Ray 
cannot have edited the paper very long, since he re- 
ceived an appointment in August as Brigade Quarter 
Master of the 3rd Brigade, and went to Plattsburgh, 
where he remained six months. Then he left the coun- 
ty, and is known to have been at a number of different 
places in the next few years, being at last completely 
lost sight of. He published a volume of poems at Au- 
burn in 1821. 

In 1811 he seems to have had an idea that Governor 
Tompkins was hkely to visit Elizabethtown, or perhaps 
he assumed the fact as a kind of poetic license. He 
thus informs "His Excellency:" 

You'll cross the lake at Northwest Bay, 
EitJfht miles computed from this villa^^e; 

The land uneven, rough the way. 
The soil is good, but bad the tillage. 

When the last eminence you rise, 

From log-built huts, and shabby people, 

The object next that strikes your eyes 

Will be, perhaps, the Court House steeple. 

From east to west a plain extends, 

From north to south a valley stretches, 

And through the whole a streamlet bends, 
To feed with fish some hungry wretches. 

No Helicooiau streams distil 

To give our poets inspiration, 
But whisky plenty from the still 

Sets all their brains in fermentation. 



234 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

No Delphic oracle is here, 

Confounding truth with many a libel. 
But a plain clergyman sincere, 

Our only oracie the Bible. 

This must have been Elder Dauiel Hascall, a gradu- 
ate of Middlebury college, who preached iu the church 
at Pleasant Valley from 1808 to 1813. Ray laughs at 
the local dignitaries, "Judges and Generals, all great 
men," and adds, 

Here's lawyers most confounded wise, 

Physicians also very plenty, 
One scarcely could believe his eyes 

To find a good one out of twenty. 

The number is evidently chosen to save the rhyme, 
as there were in all probability no more than two doc- 
tors in the township at this time, at least as perauanent 
residents. 

One copy of Ray's newspaper is still preserved in 
Elizabethtown, showing it to have been a very credita- 
ble production for the place and the time. Surely it 
must have received a welcome, at a time when news 
was so eagerly looked for. And still no newsf)aper at 
that period ever forestalled the intelligence that cauie 
by means of private letters or by word of mouth. In 
those days if a friend left in one of the older states 
wrote to any one in the new settlement of Elizabeth- 
town, his letter was mainly occupied with public affairs, 
elections, the proceedings of Congress, news received 
from over-seas by sailing vessels, while inforuaaticm in 
regard to family matters would be left to be crowded iu 
at the br^tom of the last page. Indeed, these letters 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 235 

ofteu found their way into the local newspaper and no 
one considered details of things which happened a 
month ago as at all out of place. No telegraph, no 
railroad, not even the stage-coach had yet penetrated 
our woods, and all communication with the outside 
world was kept up b}^ the man on horseback. Letter 
postage was high, six cents for every thirty miles atone 
time, and ordinary people never expected more than 
one or two letters a year, which were as likely to come 
b}' the hand of some travelling friend as by the post- 
rider. Letters of the period are commonly endorsed 
at the bottom, "By the politeness of Mr. Blank," who 
curries the letter, maybe a long distance, as a friendly 
office, knowing that he may require the same accom- 
modation in his turn. 

i^s a compensation for the slowness and difficulty of 
communication between distant parts, we must con- 
sider that in those days news by word of mouth was 
much more reliable than it is now, and depended upon 
much more extensively^ Then, if a man heard a bit of 
news from a stranger whom he met at a ford in the 
forest, or at the door of an inn, he listened wdth the 
closest attention, learned it by heart, and then set off 
.•IS a matter of course to repeat it to his next door 
iieighbor, who received it and repeated it in his turn. 
In this way ir^telligence of wars and of Indian uprisings 
often travelled with incredible swiftness and accurary, 
and in this way, and for this reason, the American 
b;ickwoo<lsinan came to be considered the embodiment 
of inquisitiveness. Living a narrow and monotonous life, 



23fi msrORY OF WJ'JSTFORT 

liis natural iiitellijiencti beiujj; detiietl its proper and 
rightful nourish luent, at the sight oi a stranger froui 
the ouside worhl he fell upon hitn as one famished for 
iuforinatiou. This is one reason why the itinerant 
preacher was always welcome, and wiiy he might choose 
his host out of his congregation. The family with 
whoQ] the })reacher sojoui-ned were sure to hear many 
interesting things before he went awav, and were en- 
vied accordingly. This is (^ne reason, too, why so many 
of the early settlers are mentioned as having ''kept an 
inn." Any one with a house large enough to contain 
a spare room, and a barn that would hold an extra 
horse, was glad to take a, stranger in, not only for the 
mcniev for his lodging, hut for the pleasure that the 
<luilest story-teller could give in relating incidents of 
his journey, witli the hints which he had picked up of 
the doings (^f the great, far away world. 

Thus the Ucueille was sure of an appreciative public, 
though perhaps of no great number of wealthy patrons. 
Its politics were strongly Republican, that is, Anti- 
Federalist, supporting the administration of Madison 
and declaring in favor of the war. The tone (^f the 
})aper may be taken as an indication of the prevailing 
sentiment in regard to these things at the county seat. 
We find from the letters of William Ray to the Gov- 
ernor that Joseph Jenks was an earnest Republican, 
while Colonel Ransom Noble of Essex is re- 
ferred to by him as "a bitter enenjy of the present 
administration." However, after war had been actually 
declared, and the militia called out for the defence of 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 237 

the frontier, there was no difference observed upon the 
battle field between Federalist and Republican, and it 
seems to be true that the western shore stood as a unit, 
entirely divided from that New England sentiment 
which led to the proceedings of the Hartford Conven- 
tion. 

When each number of the Reveille was printed, the 
copies were distributed to the subscribers by private 
carriers. Those for distant patrons, like General 
Wright, or Charles Hatch, Esq.,, were packed into sad- 
dle-bags and carried on horse-back. 

The township in which William Ray published the 
Reveille had a population of 1362, of which 741 were 
males. Property was assessed at $108,450. There 
were four grist mills, seven saw mills, four forges, a 
carding machine and a distillery. The distillery was 
situated at Pleasant Valley, but a good proportion of 
the mills and forges must have stood upon the present 
territory of Westport, as we know that there were Bra- 
tuau's Mills at the falls of the Boquet, Coil's Mills on 
Raymond brook, one or two on Mill brook, and a num- 
ber of mills and forges on our side of the Black river. 
The settlement at Northwest Bay when William Ray 
first saw it numbered about twenty buildings, houses, 
mills and stores, the greater part of which lay on the 
isouth side of Mill brook. To this size the place had 
^rowu in ten years' time, and such was its importance 
during the war of 1812. Its real significance is better un- 
derstood by a knowledge of the commercial condition of 
the great valley in which the little hamlet lay. At the 



2iS iriSTOIiV OF WESTPORT 

Custom House, the vMlne of exports froai the District 
of ChampLiin for the two- mouths of Mmj aud Juue, 
1811, (as given io the Plaffshfirrjh Republican for 
March 31, 1900,) was $296,914 These exports consisted 
main!}' of pork, cider, coru, butter, lard, candles, 
leather, potash and soao, all carried on sailiug vessels, 
bateaux and rafts. There were also quantities of tea, 
tobacco, and some manufactured goods which were 
making the long journey from New York or Albany to 
Canada, and we must remember that this gives no ac- 
C(^unt of smuggled goods. During these two mrmths 
forty-three rafts were cleared, containing over a million 
cubic feet of pine timber, principally Norway, besides 
oak timber, spars, staves, ash oars and w^-ilnut hand- 
spikes. One of these rafts, valued at |2,600, was sent 
out by Diadorus Holcomb, and we know at this tisne 
Gen. Daniel Wriglit sent rafts to Canada every summer. 
Those were the days when notiiing more wonderful or 
adventurous could ha[)pen to any hoy tiian being al- 
lowed to go to Quebec on one of tiiese rafts, carrying 
with him the sidns of the wild auiuials which he and 
his brothers had trapped and sliot tb.e winter before. 

And so we can see it all, the township covered with 
the dark forest, and here and thei'e all over it, except 
upon steep sides of the mountains, log cabins stand- 
ing each one solitary in its own clearing, and the 
clearings connected by rough trails. Oti the lake shore 
two clusters of small low houses in the bays, with the 
clumsy ferry boat moored to its rude wharf at the point. 
Everywhere the rin^x of axes and the crash of falling 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 239 

trees, sail boats always coming and going, the only link 
with far away worlds, and then the winter drift white 
over all, even the frozen lake. 



240 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

VII. 

War of 181 '2. 

And DOW upon this quiet scene falls a slowly deepen- 
ing shadow of war. Signs of the second struggle for 
independence were seen as early upon the Cham plain 
frontier as in any part of the country. First came the 
Embargo of 1807, instantly defied by open and delib- 
erate smuggling across the Canada line, accompanied 
by many acts of lawlessness and violence. This is the 
most romantic period in all our history as a town, the 
period in which the most stirring incidents of the latest 
novel of adventure might easily have happened. Smug- 
glers, pirates, revenue officers, secret hiding places on 
lonely shores, costly merchandise loaded by night on 
pack horses which were led by dangerous paths over 
the mountains into the interior, foreign emissaries close 
at hand, tempting loyalty with foreign gold, duelling 
still practiced among honorable gentlemen, — this was 
the background against which our ancestors moved. 
Scott's "Guy Mannering" was not written then, but he 
might have laid the scene of the story on Lake Cham- 
plain with no loss of coloring. The buy who gives 
himself up to the spell of the Wizard of the North, and 
reads, enchanted, — 

"Even at this dead hour of night there were lights 
moving upon the shore, probably occasioned by the 
unloading a smuggling lugger from the Isle of Man, 
which was lying in the bay. On the light from the 
sashed door of the house being observed, a hollo from 
the vessel of 'Ware hawk! Douse the glim!' alarmed 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 241 

those who were od shore, and the lights instantly dis- 
appeared," etc., — never thinks, perhaps, that it all 
might have been written about Northwest Bay, only 
changing the "lugger from the Isle of Man" into a sloop 
from Canada, and translating the warning words into 
Canadian patois or Yankee dialect. Scott's Dutch 
skipper is Dirck Hatteraick, but surely we could match 
that name — what do you think of Tennis Van Vliet ? — 
and his vessel is the Yangframo Hagenslaapen, but that 
is not half so shuddery and piratical as the Black Snake, 
which was the actual name of a smuggling craft on 
Lake Champlain in 1808. True stories are told of plots 
to kidnap revenue officers, and of rafts of lumber which 
went into Canada carrying armed men, behind bul- 
warks of logs, w^ho defied the officers to oppose their 
passage across the line. Smuggled liquor and 
salt were seen in every country tavern and store, and 
we have no reason to believe that our town was sig- 
nalized by any excess of virtue in the matter of cus- 
toms duties. 

This state of things, together with the fact that in 
the event of war the northern frontier was the natural 
avenue of invasion for a British army, made imperative 
the action of government in sending Lieut. Melancthon 
Taylor Woolsey," U. S. N., (about 1809, according to 

*rhe author has had to deal wiih no less than seven Melani.thons — four of them 
Woolseys and three of them Smiths There was a Melancthon Taylor Woolsey 
who was an officer in the old French war. His son. Gen. Melancthon Lloyd 
Woolsey, owned one of our original patents. The son ol the latter, named after 
his grandfather, was Lieut. M. T. Woolsey, U. S. N., and a fourth of the same 
family. Mtlancthon Brooks Woolsey. was in the navv during- the Civil War. Then 
as for the Smiths, the first was Judge Melancthon Smith of the Revolutionary 



242 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Palmer,) to build two gunboats for the defence of the 
lake. Lieut. Woolsey was the son of that Melancthon 
Lloyd Woolsey whose name appears upon our old map 
as owner of one of our original patents, and who was 
called Gen. Woolsey from his service in this war. The 
guD boats were built at Basin Harbor, where was a 
well-fitted ship-yard, perfectly sheltered in the little 
circular bay, with its narrow entrance between high 
rocks. We know that part of the machinery in this 
ship-yard belonged to government from the report of 
the Commissary of Military Stores of 1804, which men- 
tions "one pair iron gin blocks, brass sheaves, found at 
Basin Harbour in Vermont in possession of Mr. Rog- 
ers." Then the next year's report mentions "two Iron 
Jack screws in possession of the assignees of Piatt Rog- 
ers on Lake Champlain." The gunboats were large, 
heavy, open scows, of probably no more than 40 tons, 
mounting each one gun. Lieut. Woolsey's service 
throughout the war was upou Lake Ontario, and in 
March of 1810 Lieut. Smith was placed in command 
of Lake Champlain. Lieut. Smith was also the son of 
a proprietor of land in Skene's Patent, his father being 
Judge Melanctoa Smith. He was a naval officer of 
experience, having been 5th lieutenant on board the 

times, one of the ablest supporters of Gov. Clinton in his opposition to Hamilton 
and the Feder il Constitution. In "The Conqueror," by Gertrude Atherton, he is 
presented as the speaker most directly pitted against Hamilton himself at the rati- 
ticalion convention at Poughkeepsie; "a clever and eloquent orator— generous and 
manly enough to admit himself beaten." One of his sons was Col. Melancthon 
Smith of the 29th regiment, U. S. A , who had a son of the same name who came 
to be a Rear Admiral, U. S, N. Whether the melancholy sequence could be fol- 
lowed farther, I cannot tell. 



HISTORY OF \VL\STroRT 243 

nufortunate Chesapeake at the time of her surreucler to 
the Biitish frigate Leopard, and signing, with the other 
ofScers, the letter which preferred charges agaiust Coiu- 
niodore Barrou. He also made headquarters at Basin 
Harbor, and there built two sloops, the Groiuler and the 
Eagle, each carr3ang eleven guns, and four more gun- 
boats. This squadron wlien completed held al)solute 
control of the lake. 

Now all this building and fitting out of war vessels 
cannot have gone on without appreciable effect upon 
the opposite shore. No lad of spirit can have failed to 
row across the lake and look upon the work of the ship- 
wrights and sailors from the seaboard, while it was a 
commercial godsend to all the coast. Nothing is more 
lik("lv than that tiiubers filled upon our soil went into 
the constructi<m of this fleet," as well as into Macdon- 
ough's, and the naval officers came often to the inn at 
Northwest Bay. One man of undoubted military im- 
])ortance in our town at this time was Brigadier-Gen- 
eral D-aniei Wright, commander of all the militia forces 
< f the three northern counties, receiving his appoint- 

* Arnold's fleet of 1775 also carried timbers cu: upon our shore. In Arn >ld'.s reg- 
imental memorandum book, written at Ti and Crown Point from May 10 to June 
24, (printed m the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 8, 1S84.,) 
he mentions sending boats to Raymond's Mills five different times, three times for 
"boards for repairing Barracks," once for "Ash for Oars and Troughs for 
Guns," and once he writes, "Sent to Raymond's Mills for Timber and provisons 
for Skine's Negroes " One day he writes: "Sent a Boat with Skens Negroes to 
dig ore," presumably from Skene's ore bed just below Crown Point, where the 
negroes were accustomed to dig it out and load it on boats to be sent to the forge 
at Skenesboro. In one of Arnold's letters to Congress that summer he says that 
he can get iron from Skenesboro. The writer regrets not having seen this regi- 
memtal memorandum bo- k in lime for fuller use in this historv. 



244 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

ment for tried military excellence. He was three years 
in the He volution, fighting at Bunker Hill and at Sara- 
toga, and had come into Essex county with the rank of 
Lieutenant in a New Hampshire regiment.^ Soon after 
his arrival, he was commissioned 2nd Major of» 
a regiment "whereof Joseph Sheldon is Lt. Col 
Commandant," then made 1st Major, then given the 
command of the regiment, and Feb. 11, 1811 was made 
Brigadier-General of the Militia of Essex, Clinton and 
Franklin counties. He was often seen riding down 
from his mountain farm to Northwest Bay, a tall, erect, 
gray-haired man of fifty-six, said to have made a most 
imposing figure on horseback when in his uniform. He 
watched the naval preparations of Lieut. Smith with the 
deepest interest, and when the two men cauie together, 
as they sometimes must, at the inn of John Halstead, 
sitting of an evening in the bar-room perhaps, with the 
village worthies listening to their conversation, the talk 
of a man who had served under John Stark, and had 
seen the army of Burgoyne advance unopposed the 
whole length of the lake, with that of another who had 
seen the height of British aggression iu the matter of 
impressment of American seamen in his service upon 
the Chesaj^eake and the Wasj?, may well liave been en- 
tertaining. 

War was declared at Washington June 18, 1812, and 
Gen. Wright got the news the 29th, receiving his orders 

*This rank was conferred upon him by a commission dated 1791, and signed by 
Josiah Bartlett, then President of New Hampshire, and a signer of the Declaration 
of Independence. A previous commission, as 2d Lieutenant, in 17S6, was signed 
by Gov. John Sullivan. 



J/ J STORY OF WE ST PORT 245 

from Major General Mooers ou that day. A few clays 
later came orders direct from Gov. Tompkins, which we 
find in the Tompkins Papers, page 360, as follows : 

Albany, June 27, 1812. 
Sill :— The detachment of militia from your brigade 
is hereby ordered into service. The detachment from 
the Essex regiments will rendezvous at such times and 
places as you may appoint. Such of them as can con- 
veniently assemble at Elizabethtown, and may not be 
armed, will arm and equip themselves from the Arsenal 
;jt that place. They mnst supply themselves invaria- 
bly with blankets and with knapsacks if they have them. 
Such equipments as they may possess will be taken 
with them, and if defective, they will be exchanged at 
the public arsenals. The contingent expenses of trans- 
porting the detachment from Essex to Plattsburgh will 
be defrayed l>y the bearer, Capt. Campbell, with whom 
you will please to make the necessary arrangements for 
that purpose. Major Noble will take the command of 
the detachment, and Dean Edson, who is assigned as 
brigade quarter master, will also accompany the de- 
tachment to Plattsburgh. Major Noble will report him- 
self on his arrival to Major General Mooers and receive 
his orders. Brigade Quarter Master Edson will wait at 
Plattsburgh the arrival of instructions of Brigadier 
Gen. Micajah Pettit, of Washington county. The de- 
tachment from Clinton will rendezvous at Plattsburgh, 
and that from Franklin will rendezvous and remain at 
Malone, in said county, until orders shall be received 
from Major Gen. Mooers. The flattering accounts 



246 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

which I have received of your military talents and of 
your active and zealous. patriotism makes me rely with 
confidence upon the earliest possible fulfillment of this 
order. I am, Sir, respectfully your ob't servant, 

Daniel D. Tompkins. 
Brigadier General, Daniel Wright." 

The "arsenal at Elizabethtown" had been built within 
the year, at Pleasant Valley, upon the line of the new 
state road which there followed the valley of the Bo- 
quet. The final rendezvous of the troops was at Wills- 
boro, as we learn from brigade orders sent to Major 
Ransom Noble July 4. 

And so the war began. And as the message flew by a 

♦Soon afterward the General's quill pen wrote his first report to the Commander 
in Chief. 

ELIZABF.THTOWN,July II, lSl2. 

Sir : — I received your Excellency's order of the 27th of June on the sth inst., 
directing me to direct the militia detached from the Essex reg'iments to march to 
Plattsburgh. I suffered no delay. I immediately informed Major Noble that he 
was to march with the troops to Plattsburgh. He cheerfully received the order 
and proceeded on his way with his men on the third day after I received your Ex- 
cellency's order. 

I likewise informed Brigade Quarter Master Edson that he was to repair with 
the troops, which order he obeyed. Your Excellency may rest assured that all 
and every order within my power will be strictly and punctually attended to. 

Suffer mc to inform your Excellency that I have been flattering myself that there 
would some opportunity piesent to view that I could serve my country in some 
post of office that I could be of service to my country and receive some emolu- 
ments to myself , as I am not a man of fortune. I was three years in the lale 
American Revolution, and have held seven different military commissions in the 
militia and have been doing duty for twenty-eight years past, to the present mo- 
ment. 

Should your Excellency think proper to remember me, I should gratefully ac- 
knowledge your Excellency's favor. 

I am, sir, with the highest respect, your Ob't Serv't, 

DANIEL WRIGHr, B. G. 
To His Excellency, Daniel D. Tompkins. 
Vol. Vn, page 4o6, Tompkins, MSS., State Library. 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT 247 

wireless telegraphy from door to door throughout the 
township, "War is declared ! the governor has or- 
dered out the militia!" the answering thought in every 
heart was "Indians !" From this terror the frontiers- 
man was never freed until after this war, in which the 
savages were employed by the British in many engage- 
ments. In the (dispatches which Gov. Tompkins sent 
out, ordering the militia of northern New York to the 
front, he said, "I trust that when you reflect upon the 
indispensable nature of the service upon which the de- 
tachment is destined, the protection of our frontier 
brethren, their wives and children, from massacre by 
savages, you and every other officer and good citizen 
will join heart and hand in forwarding the execution of 
this requisition." 

Writing to Gen. Dearborn, he says : "The recruits at 
Plattsburgh are within fifty miles of two tribes of Ca- 
nadian Indians. In case of an attack upon the fron- 
tiers, that portion of the United States Army would be 
as inefficient and as unable to defend the inhabitants or 
themselves even as so many women." William Ray, 
writing one of his innumerable letters to the Governor, 
says: "Many people here are much alarmed at the un- 
armed situation of our militia on account of the hostility 
of the Indians." 

The frontier post was not now at Crown Point, as in 
the Revolution, but at Plattsburgh, and to that place 
cavalry, infantry and artillery were instantly ordered. 
Cannon, ammunition, muskets, tents, pails, camp ket- 
tles, knapsacks, all the munitions of war came down the 



248 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

lake, or aloDg the eastern shore. Later in the war the 
main thoroughfare was by the state road through 
Schroon. June 26 the Governor wrote from Albany to 
Maj. John Mills, Washington county : "You will pro- 
ceed with the miUtary stores and articles direct to 
Whitehall on Lake Champlain, from whence you will 
transport them, together with the cannon ball belong- 
ing to the State, lying at Whitehall, to Plattsburgh and 
Essex arsenals. If an immediate conveyance by water 
cannot be obtained, you will proceed by land with the 
articles for Plattsburgh through Vermont to Burling- 
ton, and from thence send for Gun Boats and other ves- 
sels from Plattsburgh, or employ, them at Burlington, 
to transport the articles to Plattsburgh, and from the 
proper point on Vermont shore send across those for 
Elizabethtown, Essex county." The "proper point on 
Vermont shore" must have been Basin Harbor, and 
every boat with an oar or sail in Northwest Bay must 
have been requisitioned for the transportation of this 
warlike freight. It is believed that our first wharf was 
built during this war, and it is probable that its neces- 
sity was first felt for unloading supplies for the Ar- 
senal at Pleasant Valley. Once on shore, the stores 
were put into carts and dragged over the rough mount- 
ain road to Pleasant Valley, crossing the Black at Mor- 
gan's Forge, now Meigsville, as the present turnpike 
route then lay through undrained swamps. 

Gen. Wright's brigade, the 40th, was then composed 
of four regiments, drawn from a large extent of thinly 
settled country. There was the 66th, Lt.-Col. Alric 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 249 

Manu, the 36th, Lt.-Col. Thos. Miller, the 9th, Lt.-Col. 
Elijah Barnes, and the 37th, Ransom Noble Major 
Commandant. In the 37th were most, if not all, of the 
men of our town. 

It is of course understood that although every able- 
bodied male citizen between the ages of eighteen and 
forty-five (with certain exceptions, hke judges, mail car- 
riers, postmasters, etc.,) was at all times subject to mil- 
itary duty, still each brigade had its quota, that of the 
40th being 300, and as naturally only the more willing 
ones were first enrolled, it was practically a volunteer 
service. There v/ere no more than 150 men on our side 
of the Black river subject to militia dut}^ and of these 
not more than fifty, so far as I have been able to learn, 
were actually under military orders during the war. 
These, with the exception of a few among the older 
men who had seen service in the Revolution, were raw 
backwoodsmen, totally inexperienced in war, but nev- 
ertheless well able to handle the muskets which hung 
over every fireplace. The forest was far from no 
man's door, and wolf or panther might be seen any day; 
therefore a boy could hardly grow up without learning 
to shoot, even though the New England training days 
and musters may have been little observed in the settle- 
ment of the new town. Our military organization seems 
to fall into two companies con>manded by Capt. Levi 
Frisbie and Capt. Jesse Braman, and a cavalry 
company commanded by Capt. John Lobdell. There 
%vere four difierent calls to service in the field during 
the two vears of the war (the first for six months, tha 



250 



mSTOKY OF WESTFORT 



others for a few days each) to which some of our militia 
nien responded. 

Sept. 12, 1812, Lieut. Thomas MaedoDOugh was given 
(MMumand of the lake, aud shortly afterward arrived at 
his post, as he tells in these words : ^' After remaiDiiig 
a few moDths in Portland I was ordered by Mr. Madi^ 
son to take ooramand of the vessels in Lake Champlain. 
Proceeded thither across the country through the 
Notch of the White Mountains, partly on horseback, 
carrying my bundle with my valise on behind, and a 
country lad only Id company to return with my horses. 
Arrived fatigued at Burlington on the lake, in about four 
days, and took oouiDiand of the vessels." Macdonough 
was then twenty-^nine years old, and had been in th^ 
navy since he was seveuteen, leading a life full of ex- 
citement and adventure in the West Indies and upon 
the Mediterranean. He remained upon the lake until 
winter closed in, and then went to Middletown, Conn., 
where he was m.arried the first of December, and where 
he stayed until the opening of navigation in the spring. 
His task was the same as that of Arnold in 1775,-^if he 
had a navy he must buikl it himself. Carefully he had 
vAiosen the place for his navy yard. Opposite the steep 
clilis of the Split r^^ck range, a little north of the Nar^ 
rows, Otter Creek flows into the lake un the easterly 
side, a deep, smooth flowing stream, passing through 
level farm lauds with many a wind and turn. About 
four miles from its mouth, at a place called the ^'But^- 
tonwoads," Macdonough built his ships.. The place 
was easily accessible for stores brought fvo,a\ the aouth 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 251 

by laDcl or water, and safe from attack to a degree 
which no harbor on the lake shore could afford. The 
place was but ten miles from Northwest Bay by water, 
somewhat less if one landed at Basin Harbor and went 
the rest of the wa}^ overland, and the scene there was 
one well worth the journey. Says Kobinson, in his 
"Vermont," "a throng of ship carpenters were busy on 
the narrow flat by the waterside ; the woods were noisy 
with the thud of axes, the crash of falling trees, and the 
bawling of teamsters; and the two furnaces were in full 
blast casting cannon shot for the fleet." The high 
framework of gin and derrick replaced the trunks of 
ancient trees, with dangling ropes and blocks for foliage^ 
and the picturesque uniforms of the naval officers gave 
it all a character unlike anything seen before or since 
upon our shores. Perhaps William Ray, if he had not 
already drifted away from Pleasant Valley on the cur- 
rent of his wandering life, came out and crossed the 
lake, and looked upon the busy scenes with keen and 
understanding vision. He had last seen Lieut. Mac- 
douough nine years before, as a midshipman on the 
deck of the FhUadelphia in the Mediterranean sea, and 
many things had come to pass in the life of men and 
nations since then. A party of young people from the 
Bay visited the navy yard under the escort of Lieut- 
Piatt Bogers Halstead, who had just received in April 
his commission as 3rd Lieutenant in the 29th U. S. In- 
fantry. Lieut. Halstead was just nineteen, still con- 
scious of the unwonted olory of his new uniform, and 
perhaps also of the fact that he was the only man in 



■23-2 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

his town who had entered the regular service, and who 
consequently did not look to the .nilitia officers or or- 
ders but to his Colonel, Melauchtou Smith, brother o 
Lieut. Sidney Smith of the navy. The only names of 
others in the party which we know are Maria Halstead 
sister of the young lieutenant, and Mary Jenks, a girl 
of fifteen who afterward married Ira Henderson ; it is 
through the latter's relating the incident to her daughter 
tliat its memory has been preserved. 

Such an excursion at that time was not without its 
spice of danger, as there were British gunboats astir 
upon the lake as soon as navigation opened. On the third 
of June Maodonough sent his two best ships, the (.ro,«- 
la- and the Eagle, under the command ot Lieut. Sidney 
Smith,* to invite an engagement. They sailed away 
out of the mouth of the Creek and away to the north, 
but they never came back again. Chasing the British 
gunboats too eagerly, they went in pursuit of them into 
tlie Eichelieu river, and were then surrounded and 
both sloops and men captured, after a sharp tight 
The sloops were at once repaired and sent^ out against 
the Americans, under the names of the Fmcl, and the 

1 • iiTu^ TSJ^ival War of iSia." that this name "is 
* President Roosevelt remarks, m "The Naval war oi loia, 

tor aur brave lieutenant in his misfortujie. 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 25H 

Chub, and all that summer and the next they were seen 
upon the lake, flaunting the British flag, while poor 
Lieut. Smith cursed the rashness which had so early 
put him outside the fight. The afi'air was especiall}' 
lamentable in view of the comparatively defenceless 
condition of the lake until the time when Macdonough 
should have his squadron in readiness. He was terri- 
iAy hampered by delays in getting men and stores from 
the seaboard, difficulties more trying to a commander 
than the fiercest engagement, and while he was still 
straining every nerve in preparation the British invaded 
the state. 

It was upon Saturda}^, July 31, 1813, that men on 
galloping horses went through the town, warning every 
mihtia man to rendezvous at the Yalley the next after- 
noon, "there to wait further orders, as a party of Brit- 
ish troops have invaded the state and are making for 
Plattsburgh." Then from Barber's Point to the Black 
river, from Mullein brook to the Falls of the Boquet, 
everywhere the men sprang for their guns and powder 
horns, while the women packed cold Johnny-cake* and 
s;ilt pork into their knapsacks, and filled their canteens 
with rum. If there were no ballets moulded there was 
no time to melt the lead now, and sometimes an hour 
after the news was received the father of the familv had 



*"Johnny-cake" was corn bread mixed hastily and baked on a smooth board 
which was tilted up before a bed of coals in the fire-place. The name is a corrup- 
tion of "journey-cake," since it was the only kind of bread which could be baked 
m camp, while one was on a journey through the woods. Bread raised with yeast 
could not be baked in haste, since it needed a certain time to rise, and it was a 
<iay's work to prepare the brick oven for a baking. 



254 HISTORY OF WESTPOBT 

kissed them all arouBd and was off, on foot or horse 
back, to the rendezvous. From the mountains of Keene, 
from' the valleys of Jay, from the highlands of Lewis, 
from the terrified lake towns whose position was that 
of most imminent dan-er in case of a naval attack, the 
men and their omcers came flocking in, missing ac^ 
couterments were supplied from the stores in the arse- 
nal, the ranks orystalizied into order at sharp words of 
command, and away they went along the state road to the 
Boith. On Tuesday, Aug. 3, Gen. Mooers wrote from 
Plattsburgh to the governor, '^Gen. Wright's brigade 
arrived here yesterday with about four hundred troops.'^ 
If our men "left the Yalley Sunday afternoon and 
reached Plattsburgh, forty miles away, on Monday, 
they must have marched all night. 

Arrived at Plattsburgh, they found the place in the 
hands of Col. John Murray of the British regulars, who 
had landed ou Sunday unopposed, with a force of UOO 
men, and was burning and plundering at his own will. 
That this should have been so is one of the mysteries 
and one of the disgraces of the war but it hardly 
belongs to us to discuss it here. When the British set 
sail again the Growler and Eagle, under their new 
names, and much ashamed, it would seem, of the new 
colors they were forced to fly, went on up the lake, 
threatened Burlington, and sailed away to the north 
unmolested. Meanwhile our men went into camp outside 
Plattsburgh and ate what their wives and mothers had 
put into their knapsacks, and at the end of the five days 
for which they had been warned out most of them weut 



HISTORY OF WE ST pom 255 

home again, without having fired a shot at the enemy. 
This was in no wise the fault of the soldiers, nor of 
Gen. Wright, who had shown such alacrity in getting 
to the front. A company of Essex county mili- 
tia remained at "Gamp Platte" under the command of 
Captain Luman Wadhams of Lewis until Nov. 18, when 
they too went home, and military operations were 
closed for the winter. 

Gen Wright's staff at the beginning of the war con- 
sisted of Major Joseph Skinner, Brigade Major and In- 
spector, and Capt. John Warford, Brigade Quarter 
Master, both Clinton county men, with Captain John 
Gould of Essex as Aid-de-Camp. The 2nd of March^ 
1814, the two Clinton county men were replaced l)v 
David B. McNeil of Essex as Brigade Major, and Wil- 
liam D. Boss (also of Essex) as Quarter Master, while 
Capt. Gould was retained as Aid. At the same time 
Capt. Luman Wadhams of Lewis was commissioned 
2ijd Major of the 37th regiment, andDiadorus Holcomb 
Surgeon's Mate, he having been Paymaster of the regi- 
ment since Mar. 22, 1809.^ 

With the opening of spring Macdonough was eagerly 

*VVadhanis and McNeii were afterward residents of Westport. David Br-eak- 
£nrijge McNeil had two grandfathers in the Old French War; one was Capt. 
Archibald McXeil of Litchfield, Conn., and the other Lieut. James Breakenridg^e^, 
who accompanied Major Philip Skene to England upon the diplomatic jnission 
which made the latter Governor of Crown Point and Ticonderoga. John McNeil, 
^c.n of Archibald, married Mary, daughter of Lieut, Breakenridge and was the 
father of David. His daughter Anne married Ransom Noble, Colonel of the 37th. 
A son of Gen. Wright's aid de-camp, John S. Gould, afterward attended school in 
Westport, at the old Academy, and his daughter Cornelia married Henry R. Noble 
■oi Elizabethtown, and was the mother of Charles H. Noble and of Mrs. Richar«i 
JL. Hand ^f the same place, and o.f Dr. John Gould N,oble of N^w York. 



■25(i HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

at work again upon the building and fitting of his fleet. 
Savs Kobinson: "The sap had scarcely begun t,> 
,w;il the forest buds when Vergennes, eight miles up 
stream, where the first fall bars navigation, was astir 
with the building of other craft far the Champlarn 
oavY Forty days after the great oak which iarmed 
the keel of the Saratoga had fallen from its stump, the 
.essel was afloat and ready for its guns* Several gun- 
boats were also built there, and early in Jlay their 
sappy timbers vet reeking with woodsy odors, the new 
craft dropped iown the viyer to join the fleet at the 
Buttonwoods. The right bank of Otter Creek at its 
mouth is a rock-ribbed promontory, connected with the 
mainland except at high water by a narrow neck of 
low, alluvial soil. On the lake side of the pom earth- 
works were thrown up, and mounted with several pieces 
of artillery for the defense of the entrance against an 
expected attempt of the eaemy to destroy the American 

tieet." ^ , 

The attempt was made, May 14, 1814 and early on a 
Saturday morning. We will be precise about the day 
and the'hour, since this was the one time m all this 
war when actual fighting reached our waters. In the 
afterncn of thedaybefore^^th^^S^^ 

X^. T.el *e„ w.e s. -"-;- -;■ f^^ rClC"; .^1 
Uken into tbe Creek to be fitted with their armaments. 



HIST our OF WESTPORT 257 

off the village of Essex, as Gen, Wright says in his offi- 
cial report, a ''British Flotilla consisting of One Brig 
of twenty guns^ six Sloops and Schooners and ten Row- 
gallies." The brig was the Linnet, Capt. Daniel Pring, 
Somewhere along the Willsboro shore a small boat had 
been seen — perhaps some peaceful fisherman who had 
iiot been warned that a British fleet was comingj per- 
haps some foolhardy boy with a youthful desire to see 
how war-ships look near by— and one of the row-gal- 
leys was sent in pursuit of it. The small boat very 
prudently made all speed into the mouth of the Boquet, 
and succeeded in escaping up the river. The soldiers 
landed at a farm house on the north side of the river, 
near the mouth, and plundered it, then rowed away to 
join the fleet, which, moving slowly against a southerly 
wind, came to anchor for the night, about sunset, off 
Split Bock. 

Meanwhile we may imagine the excitement in Essex, 
where resided, as it happened, all the members of Gen, 
Wright's staff, as well as the Colonel of the 37th, the mi' 
litia regiment of the vicinity. Gen. Wright was 6 or 7 
miles away, putting in his crops, I suppose, upon the 
hillside farm, but his officers acted at once. "I resid- 
ing some distance from this village," he writes, "and 
not being promptly informed of the appearance of the 
enemy, Lt.-Col. Hobles anticipated my wishes by or- 
dering out the Militia from a number of adjacent 
towns." So once more the alarm went through Wills- 
boro, Lewis and Elizabeth town, and once more the men 
responded to tbe call. Another invasion, and this time 



2o8 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

uut foHy miles away, but at their very doors. All 
that uight the militia came streaming m to Esses, Gen. 
Wric,'ht galloping down the rocky road on one ot the 
farm horses, perhaps, with some ot the men from the 
Bay clattering at his heels. All the Vermont shore 
was up in arms as well as ours by this tune, and 
Kobinson tells how the militia officer came to- 
gether this, same night, when the British fleet 
lay oti- Split Rock, and were busy running bullets at 
Vergennes.* At Essex groups of anxious men stood 
upon the shore and looked off to the south where the 
li'dits of the hostile ships twinkled in the darkness. 
No lighthouse then stood above "the Split," but it the 
uioht was clear some shadowy outline of the ships was 
visible. As day began to dawn there was a stir ot 
awakening upon the water, capstans creaked m le- 
^ponse to words ot command, the anchors ot the fleet 
were raised, and it moved away to the south, confarm- 
iuo- what had long since been conjectured, that the ob- 
ject ot the invasion was an attempt upon Macdonough s 
fleet then fitting in Otter Creek. ^ 

.The present Mrs.james A. Allen has told me ot an inciJent often related by 
her grandfather, Captain John Wlnans of the stealer K..,.»«<, -"-^ '^--^^ 
some fme during this war Fearful of an attack, he determined that h.s vesse 
Should never fall into the hands of the British, and so laid a tratn to powder ask 
„ the hold, and gave directions that at the word of command the tratn should be 
LVandthe r..»..»<, crew, Brifsh and all, if such should be the condtt.on of 
affa. s, blown oat of the water together. One ntght a boat was -- ^-P'";* °^ 
,n the darkness, and the word went round for all hands to be ready »». 1«« » *^ 
„,ck of time the newcomers were discovered to be of their own party, and the pow^ 
der was not Bred. So desperate a resource was not likely to ^ f"^"" J-^^'^ 
in a time of imminent danger, like this night when the Brmsh fleet lay off bpht 
Rock, and all the coast was awake and alive with terror and resolution. 



lUSTORY OF WESTPORT 259 

The works at the mouth of the Otter were defended 
by Capt. Thornton of the artillery and Lieut. Cassin of 
the navy. The British sailed to within two miles of 
the works, and then eight of the row-galleys *'and a 
bomb ketch" moved up and made an attack with can- 
non, bomb and musketry, which was repelled with much 
spirit, the Americans having one gun dismounted and 
two men slightly wounded, while the galleys suffered 
considerable damage, and soon drew off. All this was 
in full sight of Northwest Bay, and only six miles away 
across the water, so that if any one there had slept that 
night, they were awakened by the roar of cannon ech- 
oed back from the steep mountain cliff opposite the 
little fort, (which we now call Fort Cassin,) while all 
the rocky sides of the Split Bock range roared in an- 
swer, I suppose the people at the Bay listened and 
looked, and ran about biding their treasures, and tried 
to plan what they would do if the British came into the 
bay aud fired upon the vlDage, There is a tradition 
about the family silver at Basin Harbor being buried 
under a rosebush in the garden-^— with the rosebush, or 
its lineal descendant, shown in confirmation,— which 
I have always heard referred to the time of the battle 
of Plattsburgh, but it is really much more likely to have 
happened at this time, when the noise of battle was 
only four miles away instead of forty. 

The British turned again to the north, and the watch- 
ers upon every headland of the lake sent the swift news 
inland that there would be no great battle between the 
fleets that day. At noon the king's ships came to off 



260 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



the villcvo-e of Essex, and "the Commodore," says Gen. 
Wright, "dispatched an officer with a flag demaodmo- 
the surrender of a small sloop belongiDg to Mr. Wm. 
D Ross which had been launched two days previous, 
but which had fortunately been conveyed to the south- 
ward of the Fort at Otter Creek." We wouder how 
Capt. Priug can have known anything about this sloop, 
but it seems that the mast and spars had been left ly- 
ino- upon the beach, and naturally suggested a hull to 
which they might belong.^^" The sloop must have been 
hidden in Barn Eock bay, Rock Harbor or Partridge 
Harbor, the latter being by far the best hiding-place. 
The owner of the sloop, by the way, was the son of 
our Elizabeth, after whom Bessboro.was named. 

Meanwhile the mihtia were drawn up about a mile 
back from the village in a position to .ommand every 
movement of the enemy. "About three o'clock" says 
Gen Wright's report, "three of the Enemy's Row gal- 
lies passsed up the river Boquett and landed at the 
falls where after demanding the public property (winch 
had'been timely conveyed to a distance) and learning 
that the Militia were in force a fewjniles^distan^jii^ 

on North Shore. son.eUn.es referred to the tin.e of ^^ '^'^^^^^^ •^.7^^ f^^ 'j. 
tond.andson.etin.es to this war. The writer has been .n the ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 
the story with no iess than two frigates, full rigged, always h.ddcn away xn Far 
tridge Harbor, the tall n.asts being n.ade inv.sible by green branches lathed upon 
them. Afterlone day observed a 'Maker" ly.ng inside the harbor, w.th her n. .sts 
not riaching the tops of the trees on the promontory wnich hides the a- or f .0. 
th« lake. I omitted the branches as unnecessary, adding a carronade - ^hj ^ 
deck of one of the frigates and an interesting middy to the crew of the other to 
Makeup for the loss. And now I am become a drudging h.stor.an m.ek.y ac^ 
Testing this one small sloop, with no masts at all. since she was pst launched, »n 
place of all that brave fiction! 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT 261 

were ou the march to intercept their retreat, they pre- 
cipitately embarked in their boats and made for the 
Lake. On ascertaining that the enemy were shaping 
their course towards the mouth of the river Lt.-Col, 
Nobles directed his march towards that point, and I 
approving of his plan of operation, I directed him to 
cross the wood and post his men on the bank of the 
Kiver, which was done with the greatest promptness, 
in time to arrest the progress of the enemy's gallies, the 
crew of which were so disabled as to oblige them to 
hoist a flag of distress, when a sloop came to their aS' 
distance and towed her off." The Americans had two 
men slightly wounded. Their position during the fight 
was extremely favorable, firing upon the boats from the 
top of the river bank, which is high an steep near the 
mouth of the Boquet. The guns in the galley could 
not be pointed high enough to reach them, most of the 
cannon balls striking the bank. The report concludes; 
"I hope and expect that Commodore Macdonough will 
in the course of a few days be able to assume the com^ 
mand of the Lake, which will relieve the anxiety of the 
inhabitants residing on its borders."* 

The next day Macdonough's squadron sailed out from 

♦Ic was not until this report was found among the papers of Governor Tomp- 
kins and published by the Essex Connty Republican in 1S96, this and other docu- 
ments being- furnished by Henry Harmon Noble, that the details of this engage- 
ment were known to the present generation. The account given in Watson's 
History of Essex County, published 1S69, shows the absence of such definite in- 
formation as we now possess. He refers the incident to the year 1813, greatly un- 
derestimates the force .of the British, arid adds that they "retired after a slight 
skirmish with a body of Militia under General Wadhams." Mr. Watson was 
writing some fifty years after the event, and did not stop to reflect — possibly did 
not know—that Wadhams was not a General during the war of 1S1.2, nor for a 



262 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

the traoquil Otter into tlie Narrows and away to the 
north, the flock of white sails watched breathlessly from 
Northwest Bay and Barber's Point and from many a 
highland farm that commanded a view of the lake. At 
Basin Harbor, where officers and men had become fa- 
miliar visitants, with some friendships formed which 
^vere never broken, the event was of stirring moment. 
All that summer Macdonough cruised upon the lake, 
drilHng his men, strengthening his crews by the ad- 
dition of salt water sailors of experience, and showing 
no fondness for the boatmen of the lake, as military 
material. I never heard of one of our boatmen as 
lighting on Macdonough's fleet, which seems a little 
curious at first. And all the summer our people saw 
soldiers and supplies passing down the lake toward 
the frontier, until in September the decisive battle was 

fought. 

It must have been the last day of August that Gen. 
Izard with an army of four thousand troops came 
marching along the new state road southward through 
Pleasant Valley,ordered from Plattsburgh to the Niagara 
frontier. Scarcely had the tramp and the music of the 
ranks died away in the distance when mounted officers 
came riding in hot haste by the same road, and by 
every by-way of the whole town, with orders warning 

number of years afterward, but 2nd Major in the 37th regiment of which Ransom 
Noble was atthe time Lieut.-Col. Commandant, he, with every other man in the 
field that day, being under the direct command of Brigadier-General Daniel 
Wright The General says in his report, "It would be invidious to distinguish 
particular officers and soldiers who acted in this encounter. With pleasure I can 
assure you that every man engaged conducted himself with the cool deliberation 
of a veteran." 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 263 

out tbe militia to repel a British invasion from the north. 
Gen. Wright, at home on his farm on the rugged slope 
of the Split Bock mountains, received his division or^ 
ders by the hand of a horseman, one of his own staff, 
from Essex, to v/hom they had been brought by horse 
or boat from Plattsburgh. We can imagine the old 
r^eneral standing in the road and listening to the sound 
)f horse's hoofs coming nearer and nearer over the 
rough and uneven road, until the horse burst out of the 
forest into the clearing, and the headlong rider drops a 
paper into the general's hand. It was endorsed on the 
outside ^'Express. Will Major McNeil or John Gould, 
Aide, at Esses, see that this order is delivered immedi- 
itely." Opening it, he read ; 

"Division Orders, Plattsburgh, August 31, 1814. 

Brig. Gen. Daniel Wright will assemble immediately 
:lie whole of the Militia under his command in the 
.'ounty of Essex and march directly to Plattsburgh to 
repel an invasion of the State of New York, 

Companies as fast as they assemble will march to 
this place or to some place of rendezvous in the vicin- 
ity thereof, without waiting for others, those near the 
irseual will suppl}^ themselves with arms from thence 
which the commisary is hereby directed to issue. 
Others will be furnished when they arrive here. 
By order of Major Gen. 

Benjamin Mooers. 

R. H, Walwoeth, Aid-de-Camp." 

And so it had come. The fourteen thousand British 
Jiioops, many of them veterans of European wars, gath- 



2M HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ered upon the Canadian frontier, had actually invaded 
the State, while the main body of our own army was 
that moment marching away to the south under Izard. 
Gen Wright's mind must have gone back thirty-tive 
years to the time when he, a young fellow of twenty- 
one in a Isew Hampshire regiment, saw Burgoyne s 
splendid conquering army come sailing up the lake to 
Ticonderoga, with its banners and music and parks ot 
artillery the emblem of pride and confidence, driving 
St Clair from his entrenchments by the sheer power 
of what it was able to do. He had gone with the 
American army in its humiliating retreat, and such 
things are not forgotten. Bat he had seen, too, the sur- 
render at Saratoga, and neither was that forgotten So he 
turned and went into the house and told the family that 
he had got his orders, and his wife Patience and his 
daughter Jerusha cried a httle as they helped him into 
his uniform and buckled on his sword and brushed his 
cocked hat and filled the flask which is still cherished 
by a great-grand-daughter. Then he mounted his sad- 
dle-horse, which a little grandson had been sent to catch 
up out of the pasture, and rode away out of their sight. 
It is to be hoped that his son-in-law, Elias Sturtevant, 
felt it his duty to stay for the protection of the women 
and children on that lonely farm, and let his musket 
and powder horn hang peacefully over the fireplace, 
except when wolf or bear showed itself too near the 

'^°Gen. Wright's brigade, the 4th, in Maj. Gen. Mooers' 
division, consisted at this time ot three regiments, the 



HISTORY OF WESTFOIir 265 

9th, Lt.-Col. Martin Joiner, the 37th, Lt.-Col. Ransom 
' Noble, and Major Reuben Sanford's independent or un- 
regiraented battalion which had been set off from the 9th. 
In the 37th, as we have seen, were most of our militia 
men, in the companies of Capt. Levi Frisbie and Capt. 
I Jesse Braman, with some in the cavalry . company of 
Capt John Lobdell. It is told that when Capt. Bra- 
man's company gathered at the Falls, early one morn- 
ing, ready to start for Plattsburgh, he gave them all 
breakfast at his own expense. Maj. Wadhams was also 
in the 37th. 

On Friday, Sept. 2nd, the first detachment marched 
! a way, for many of the men the third time they had march- 
ed to Plattsburgh. The next Tuesday came the first act- 
ual fighting, early in the morning of the 6th. Mooers 
had taken them across the river to meet a column of 
British troops which was moving upon Plattsburgh, not 
with the intention of giving battle, but, as he says, "to 
check and thwart his movements," and also, (which he 
does not say) glad to try the mettle of his green troops, 
the men who had left farms, mill and forges a few days 
before, carrying flint-lock muskets which had never been 
leveled at anything but the wild beasts that threatened 
the farmer's sheep. There was some sharp fighting as 
the militia retired to the river, and Mooers says, "Some 
part of the militia behaved on this occasion, as well as 
since, with the greatest gallantry, and were not sur- 
passed in courage and usefulness by the regulars on 
that day." And he was also obliged to remark, "There 
was a portion of the militia that could not be rallied. 



266 HISrORY OF WESTPORT 

auJ some of these retired immediately to their homes/' 
—that is, ran at the first fire, and oever stopped run^ 
uiug until they reached a place which they considered 
safe. 

The day of tlie Battle of plattsburgh fell upon Sun- 
da}', Sept. il, 1814. The day before, as it happened, 
was the (ine appointed for the regular "church and cov- 
nant meeting" (which all Baptists are accustomed to 
hold upon Satuidays, in prepai'ation for the commun- 
ion service the next da}') at Northwest Bay, and you 
may read to-day upon the worn and yellowed pages of 
tile old church book,— 

"Sept. 10. Usual time for holding Church meeting, 
but on the account of an Alaram it was omitted," The 
"Alaram" was the news that the British fieet had ap- 
peared below Plattsburgh, and that a battle w^as immi- 
nent. The entry must have been made later, as the 
clerk of the church, Tillitighast Cole, is believed to 
have marched with his company to fight the next day. 
Deacon Abuer Holcomb, too, who was wont to lead 
the meetings, was in the service niore or less 
throughout tlie war, although he must have been an 
exempt by reason of his age."' And so at Northwest 



*On the Thursday before this the members of a Congregational church at Fair- 
field had a similar meeting. Their minister, the Rev. Benjamin Wooster, 
had been a soldier in the Revolution, and a warlike spirit being discovered i 
among his church members, a company was formed then and there, with the Rev. J 
Benjamin as Captain, They crossed the lake, and on Sunday aided the militia 
under Gen. Strong in the final repulse of the British across the ford. Gov. Tomp- 
kins afterward presented the valiant volunteer captain with a large family Bible 
in recognition of his peculiar services. On the morning of the battle, the Friends s 
(or Quakers) of Grand Isle attempted to hold their regular First Day meeting, but i 
were obliged to give It up, as the proper state oi mind could not be maintained i 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 267 

Bay there was no quiet Sunday gathering in the little 
school house, but terror and suspense in ever}- home as 
the sound of furious cannonading, ten times as heavy 
as anything heard in the week preceding, was borne 
distinctly up the lake, beginning between eight and 
nine o'clock in the morning and continuing two hours 
and a half. Then it all stopped, and not for days was 
certain news received of the issue of the fight. Hannah 
Hardy at the Falls used to tell her grandchildren how 
the women listening at home fancied sometimes that the 
boom of cannon was coming nearer, as though the 
British were approaching up the lake. 

Meanwhile the men were taking part in one of the 
battles of history, so far as the naval battle is con- 
cerned, although the engagement upon the land scarcely 
rises above the importance of a skirmish. The hostile 
lieets met in Plattsburgh bay on a beautiful, placid 
September morning, with the blue lake only rippled by 
a gentle breeze from the south, and a few white clouds 
floating in a blue, sunshiny sky. Commodore Downie 
had his flagship, the Con/iauce, 36 guns, the Limiet, 16 
guns, the Chubb, 11 guns, and the Fuich, 11 guns, with 
twelve gunboats managed by sweeps. Commodore 
Macdonough had his flag-ship the Saraioga, 26 guns, 

while the cannon fire between the fleets WHS going- on outside helow thtir very 
windows, i he next year John Comly, a Friend preacher, came all the way from 
Pennsylvania to visit the P riends in this region, and vsrrote one day in his diary, 
"I had a meeting at Friends' meeting house on the west side of the Island, and 
nearly opposite where a bloody battle was fought on the lake, about a year ago, 
daring meeting time. It must have bi-en an awful shocking scene!" He also 
wrote, "In passing through Plattsburgh, the ravages of the battle on the lake were 
plainly visible." 



b 



268 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

the Eagle, 20 guus, the Ticonderoga, 17 gUDS, aud the 
Frehle, 7 guus, with ten guui)()cits. They fought for 
over two hours, and when the British had lost one-tifth 
of their men, Couiincjdore Dowuie and a number of his 
officers being among the first slain, with scarcely a 
mast left on any vessel sound enough to raise a sail 
upon, the British colors struck to the stars and stripes, 
and a great shout of victory went up from the Amer- 
ican sailors."^ 

As Downie's Heet opened tire upon Macdonough's, 
the British land forces under Sir George Prevost a^l- 
vanced to the attack of the American position. Gen. 
Macomb with his 1500 regulars occupied strong fortifi- 
cations on the south bank of the Saranac, between the 
river and the lake. In the central and most impn'tant 
redoubt, Fort Moreau, was the '29th regiment, Col, 
Melancthon Smith, in which Piatt R. Halstead was 2nd 
Lieutenant. The troops lined the parapet in double 
ranks awaiting the attack of the enemy, but as the 
British never crossed the river, the fighting was all 
done at long range with the artillery. 

The enemy attenipted the passage of the Saranac by 



*Palmer quotes the remark of a British marine to the effect that the battle of 
Trafalgar was "but a rtea bite" to the battle of Plattsburgh. When one considers 
that at Trafalgar forty figrhtinsr ships on one side and thirty on the other, some of 
them carrying- more guns than did Macdonough's whole tieet, fought two by two, 
with guns almost n^outh to mouth, the Victory, which earned a hundred guns, 
completely crippling the gigantic Bucentaur with one broadside in two minutes, 
the comparison is seen to be quite absurd. It can only be explained on the theory 
that the British sailor was, for some reason, not so much in the thick of the fight 
at Trafalgai as he was at Plaltsburgh, since it is wellTcnown that one cannon ball 
coming directly your way is a more interesting object than a thousand which seem 
more likely to be met by som.e other fellow. 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 269 

two bridges in the village and by a ford three miles np 
the river. The militia under Gen. Mooers, about 700 
in uumber, were entrusted wath the defense of this ford, 
and here was Gen. Wright with his brigade. Gen. 
Mooers, says in his report to the Commander in Chief, 
"On the morning of the lltli the action began with the 
fleet, the enemy at the same time opening all his batter- 
ies npon our forts. About an hour afterwards the enemy 
presented themselves in considerable force to effect a 
passage of the Sarauac at a ford able place, one oF my 
cantonment, where the Essex militia and some few de- 
tached volunteers were posted. In disputing the pas- 
sage of the river a sharp contest ensued. The mihtia 
under the command of Majors Sanford and Wadharas, 
two excellent officers, stood their ground during a num- 
ber of well-directed fires, and until the enemy had 
ettected the passage of the river and ascended the bank, 
when a retreat was ordered and effected in good order 
before a force evidently far superior, carefully improv- 
ing every good position to continue oar fire upon them." 
They fell back to a small battery about two miles from 
the ford, and there made a stand, and with the help of 
the guns stopped the enemy's advance. At this point 
a man on horseback was seen galloping up, waving his 
hat. It was Major Walworth, one of Gen. Mooers' 
stafi", who had been sent to the shore of the lake to 
watch the naval battle and report its progress. The 
waving hat meant "Victory !" and so the quick-witted 
Yankee men understood it. They pressed upon the 
enemy with exultant cheers, and a large body of Yer- 



270 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

ID out volunteers under Gen. Strong having come up 
they drove the British back across the river with con- 
siderable loss. That night, under cover of darkness 
and storm, the British retreated — "decamped very sud- 
den and unexpected," says Mooers,— leaving their 
wounded and their stores i3^hind them.* 

In Gen. Mooers' report we find "Majors Reuben San- 
ford and Luman Wadhams mentioned above are enti- 
tled to notice for their gallantry and good conduct, as 
also Brigade Major David B. McNeil and Brigade 
Quarter Master Wm. D. Ross for their activity and at- 
tention in the line of their duties." Major Reuben 
Sanford lived in Wilmington and conducted a large 
business there. His grand-son, Henry Clay Avery, was 
for many years a merchant at Wadhams Mills, and his 
great-grandson, Harry Avery, is now a young lawyer 
in New York. Majors Wadhams and McNeil afterward 
became residents of Westport, the former becoming 
prominent in the town life, and rising to the rank of 
General. William Daniel Ross dealt in lumber, iron 
and ship-building in Essex ; his wife was a sister of 
Capt. John Gould, Aid on Gen. Wright's staff, and his 
brother, Henry H. Ross, (afterward Gen. Ross,) was 
adjutant of the 37th at the battle of Plattsburgh. The 
militia were disbanded immediately after the battle, 

♦Readers of Mrs. Catherwood's charming romance of "Lazarre" will be pleased 
to recall that the real Eleazar Williams, whether or no he was the rig-htful King 
of France, was certainly present at the battle of Plattsburgh and was wounded in 
his right side. Perhaps our Dr. Diadorus may have helped to bind up the wound, 
To be sure, he was more likely to be occupied with wounded militia men, but it is 
a poor imagination which could not contrive some succession of events which 
would bring them together. 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORI 271 

since the citizen soldiers were never kept from their 
homes longer than was positively necessary, but man}' 
of them yielded to tbe temptation of staying a little 
longer to celebrate. Their families were no longer in 
danger, and the women of 1814 were quite equal to 
milking the cow and splitting the kindling wood, while 
the scene of the recent camp of the British was a 
fascinating spot. Tents, camp equipage, ammunition, 
clothing, private papers, even money had been left be- 
hind by Prevost, and spoil from this camp, rather than 
from the battle field, was scattered through two coun- 
ties, with many a boat-load taken to Vermont. For 
years the militia trainings were gay with uniforms and 
swords from the camp of Prevost. 

We can imagine the home-coming of the men, all con- 
quering heroes in the admiring eyes of their womenfolk. 
Ail the stories I have ever heard the old people tell 
declare that no news of the battle was received until 
after several days, which would seem to argue that no 
deserters came home early with tales of disaster. Per- 
haps there were no deserters among our men, and if there 
were, perhaps they had the discretion to keep out of the 
way of the women until the other men came home. 
Some cam^i back wounded, like Capt. Frisbie, who lost 
a leg. When the news of the victorv and of his wound 
came to the Point, the families there had had their 
household goods loaded into wagons since the cannon- 
ading first begun, feeling themselves to be in a place 
peculiarly exposed in case of a descent of the British 
soldiery. It was necessary that some one should go to 



272 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Plattsburgh to take care of the wounded captain and 
bring him home, and as his wife was not able to go at 
the time, his sister, "the widow Barber," went and 
brought him home in a sailing boat. 

There has been preserved a letter written upon the 
day of the battle by Mary, wife of Capt. Jared Pond and 
daughter of Piatt Rogers. The Ponds were then liv- 
ing at Basin Harbor, Mrs. Pond being mistress of the 
house. A woman who could sit calmly down and write 
a letter in the midst of such confusion as she describes, 
in a house full of women and children, with the doors 
bolted and barred, must have had something of forti- 
tude in her nature. She writes on Sunday afternoon. 

Bason Harbor, Sept. 11, 1814. 
Dear Husband, I sit down to address a few lines to 
you, (if it please God that you are still in the land of 
the living,) to inform you of our situation at present." 
She is soon interrupted, but resumes her pen again in 
the evening. "Sunday evening. I was called away by 
company coming in. There is some alarm here among 
women and children about an Indian that was seen 
yesterday in the wf tods near Panton. To-day at Mich- 
ael Gage's he got some bread and butter and came on 
this way. The neighbors have been out to look for 
him, but have discovered nothing more of him yet. A 
person just knocked at the door ; I inquired who was 
there ; was answered "Friend !" I unfastened the door 
and let in a young man whom I found to be Lyman 
Chamberlain. He tells me he saw you yesterday, and 
that you informed him you should not return till you 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 273 

saw which way it turned." It is plain that she would 
like very much to have him at home again, which is 
not to be wondered at, and she alludes to "all our 
neighboring men, generally speaking, going to the army, 
leaves us in rather a tried situation. However I wish 
not to complain, and shall endeavor to bear my part 
with becoming patience and fortitude, with the assist- 
ance of^ Divine Grace. There have been a number of 
cannon heard to-day. We are anxious for the safety 
of hnsbauds, friends and fellow countrymen. I hope 
the prayers of God's people are continually offered up 
to Him who is able to protect our army and give suc- 
cess to our arms in driving back our enemies to their 
own borders. May our Almighty Father protect and 
defend you, and return you in safety to be a blessing 
to your family. M. P. (Mary Pond.) Perhaps I shall 
write more before this goes. 

Daybreak Tuesday morning. Since writing the above 
I have experienced a multiplicity of scenes. Our house 
and barn have been filled since Monday night with 
soldiers from the South. I yesterday experienced an 
excess of joy for a few moments on account of the vic- 
tory, but was soon damped by the news of Mr. Barron's 
death, which also gave new cause of anxiety for your 
fate. Before night we received news of 3^our being 
among the slain, by way of Vergennes. But the Lord 
is still good and gracious. I was enabled to stand the 
shock with a degree of fortitude, and declared in the 
midst of my trouble in this manner : "I do not 
beheve it." I had so fervently commended you into 



274 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the liauds of our Heavenly Father that 1 felt as though 
it could not be. It would be difficult to describe the 
anguish of our poor children on hearing the news. 
But in an hour we heard that after the action you were 
seen and spoken with, w^ere well and in good spirits. 
This almost overpowered my poor feeble frame — so 
sudden a reverse ! Blessed and praised forevermore be 
our Eternal Father, for such I feel Him to be. Do re- 
turn as soon as possible. I can't express my joy 
and satisfaction on reflection that you have been pre- 
served, and so far have done a duty that every true 
friend to their country ought to do. Our poor friend 
Ida Barron is with us. O how heartrending are such 
scenes. May the Lord support her and sanctify it to 
her soul. Once more I beseech the Almighty to return 
you in safety, but am still anxious. We heard cannon- 
ading last night, wdiich appeared to be nearer than 
Plattsburgh. God only knows what will be the next 
news. Farew^ell." 

"Our poor friend Ida Barron" means, I think, the wife 
of Joseph Barron, the pilot of Macdonough's flagship, 
who was killed just at the close of the action, after the 
enemy's flag had been struck, by a stray shot from one 
of the craft. He was just returning his watch to his 
pocket, having taken it out to determine the duration 
of the battle. He must have been an inmate of the 
house, more or less, for several years, as there are old 
deeds of various dates, made out there, which I have 
seen, signed by "Barron, Jr.," as a witness. Lt. Hal- 
stead mourned him as one of his dearest friends.* 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 273 

The regulars remaiDed at Plattsburgh until winter, 
large bodies of United States troops being ordered 
there immediately after the battle, to prevent the possi- 
bility of another laud invasion. No invasion by water 
could be thought of since Macdonough's sweeping vic- 
tory, and the commodore requested service on the sea- 
board under Decatur. His ships, and those he had 
captured, were not withdrawn to Otter Creek, but to 
Fiddler's Elbow, near Whitehall, where they lay for 
years, "never again," as Robinson says, "to be called 
forth to battle. There, where the unheeding keels of 
commerce pass to and fro above them, the once hostile 
hulks of ship and brig, schooner and galley, lie beneath 
the pulse of waves in an unbroken quietude of peace." 

Although the war was reallj^ over, except for the De- 
cember battle far, far away at New Orleans, the lake 
dwellers, thrown out of all their old habits of quiet in- 
dustry by the alarms and excitement of the past two 
years, suffered needless terrors that winter from rumors 
of a great invasion from Canada, which should ravage 
the shores and burn Macdooough's ships as they lay 
frozen in the ice. Details were supplied of horses 
and sleighs, artillery mounted on runners, fur-clad 
troo])s with snow-shoes, and many a frightened woman 
sat knitting socks or mittens as fast as her hugers could 
fly, listening to the men as they talked of all this, and 
determined that if the soldiers of her household went 

*Oae of my idle quests has been an attempt to discover a relationship between 
Joseph Barron, pilot of Macdonough's flag-ship, and Commodore Barron of the 
Chesapeake, the one who killed Decatur in a duel, six years after this. 



276 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

forth to meet such an army, they should be clad as 
warmly against the bitter cold as her strength and skill 
could compass. But when the news came in February 
that the treaty of peace was signed, all alarms were 
over. From that time onward life presented the old 
problems with which men had wrestled before they 
were called from the daily struggle with wild na- 
ture, the forest and the soil, to fighting their fellow men. 
Material progress had almost entirely stopped during 
the war, not because the men had been employed upon 
military service the greater part of the time, which it 
would not be correct to say, but because the times had 
been so unsettled that men's minds had not dwelt upon 
their own affairs as they had been wont to do in times 
of peace. It is a common remark among historians of 
this war that the northern settlements were nearly ru- 
ined at its close. Nevertheless, the evils of neglect are 
soon repaired, and soon the old every day work was 
taken up with redoubled vigor. The tide of immigra- 
tion from older settlements set in once more to these 
shores, and the population rapidly increased. 

One lasting monument to this war is found in the 
names bestowed upon some of the boys who were born 
soon after. Dr. Diadorus Holcomb named a son Henry 
Harrison, and Tillinghast Cole named one Perry. 
Other instances are A. Macdonough Finney and Bain- 
bridge Bishop in Elizabethtown, and Montgomery Pike 
Whallon and Stephen Decatur Derby in Essex — the 
latter addressed as "Commodore" all his life in allusion 
to this name. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT '277 

But iu no particular did the war leave its mark upon 
the daily Hfe of the people so much as in the new songs 
which came to be sung. The only musical instruments 
likely to be in town at that time were violins, more or 
less rude, and played with toil-worn fingers. Uncle 
Jed Barnes, the fiddler, then lived on the corner, on the 
present site of the club house, and the children in 
the school house a little way farther to the south 
used to go in after school hours and beg him to sing 
the "Massacre of the Kiver Eaisin." It is a curious 
fact that the name of Jeduthun Barnes w^as prophetic 
of that gift by which he is remembered in our local 
history, since we read in 1 Chron., 16:42; "And with 
them Heman and Jeduthun with trumpets and cym- 
bals for those that should make a sound, and with 
musical instruments of God." He was the uncle of the 
Jim Barnes of our day, and any one who now remem- 
bers hearing the latter sing "Marching through Georgia" 
can imagine the tuneful zeal with which "Uncle Jed" 
delivered these lines : 

"In Michigan forest the night winds were high; 
Fast di'ifted the snow through the bleak winter sky. 
The trees, clitfs and mountains were hoary and cold, 
And the waves of the Raisin congealed as they rolled. " 

Then there was the Star Spangled Banner, with the 
lines going a tiifie heavily, but with plenty of breath 
very effective. But neither of these delighted our an- 
cestors like the songs written about our own great bat- 
tle. There was the story about the game-cock on 
l)oard Macdonough's flag-ship. One of the first shots 
from the enemy shattered the coop and set him free, 



278 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

when he flew up in the rigging and crowed with all his 
might. The sailors were so delighted with the omen 
that they cheered him, and alwa3^s believed that the in- 
cident was significant of victory. There were some 
lines to the tune of "John Anderson, my Jo John" 
which allude to this : 

'•Q Johnny Bull, my Jo John, 

Behold on Lake Champlaiu, 
With more than equal force. John, 

You tried your tist again. 
But the cock saw how 'twas going. John, 

And cried cock-a-doodle-doo. 
And Macdonough was victorious, John, 

O Johnny Bull, my Joe. " 

Then there was "The Siege of Plattsburgh," to the 
tune of "Boyne Water,) first sung in a variety theatre 
in Albany, poor stuff enough, but no social occasion 
was complete without it for many years. 

"Backside Albany stan' Lake Champlain, 

Little pond half full o' water; 
Platt-burgh dar too, close 'pon de main. 

Town small, he grow bigger, do, hereafter. 
On Lake Champlain Uncle Sam set he boat, 

An' Massa JMacdouough he sail 'em, 
While Giueral Macomb make Platt-burijh he home, 

Wid de army whose courage neber fail 'em.'' 

Another is still fondly remembered among the older 
people, who recall it with an enthusiasm quite out of 
proportion to its poetic finish. The national history is 
reviewed in twenty or more stanzas, two of which run 
like this : 

"When Provost saw he'd lost his fleet 

He gave out special orders 
For his whole army to retreat 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 279 

x\Dd leave the Yankee borders. 
Thro' dreary wilds and bogs and fens 

The luckless general blundered, 
He lied with fifteen thousand men 

From Macomb's fifteen hundred." 

No iustructioDS will be needed as to the expected 
pronunciation of the last word. 

But the favorite of all others was a home production, 
called "The Noble Lads of Canada," sung to a rollick- 
ing tune of its own. The story goes that it was written 
by one Minor Lewis, living in Mooers, a town next the 
Canada line. His imagination dwelt upon the recent 
exciting events until one day, as he was chopping alone 
in the w^oods, the words of the song began to take shape 
in his mind. He found a bit of charcoal and a large 
chip with a smooth surface— some say the smooth top 
of a stump— and there wrote the words before they 
could escape him. I prefer the chip story to the stump 
story myself, because he could carry the chip home and 
store it away as the ancients stored away the leaves of 
papyrus after they were written upon. But genius like 
that makes no affectation of forgetting its own produc- 
tion, even if it has been left upon a stump in the depths 
of the woods, and the song was soon published by the 
power of many a lusty throat. It afterward found its 
way into print, and the sarcastic impersonation of the 
British which was necessary for the singer gave it just 
the dramatic touch which insured its success. The 
words suffered many variations, sometimes beginning 
*'Come all ve Noble EngHshmen," and sometimes with 



280 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

lines inserted containing local hits, according to the 
place and the occasion. 

Come all ye British heroes, I pray you lend your ears, 
Draw up your British forces, and then your volunteers, 
We're going to fight the Yankee boys by water and by 

land, 
And we never will return till we conquer, sword in 
hand. 

We're the noble lads of Canada, come to arms, 
boys, come. 

Oh, now the time has come, my boys, to cross the Yan- 
kee's line. 

We remember they were rebelsonceand conquered John 
Burgoyne, 

We'll subdue those mighty rebels and pull their dwel- 
lings down, 

And we'll have the States inhabited with subjects of the 
crown. 

We're the noble lads of Canada, etc. 

Now, we've reached the Plattsburgh banks, my boys, 
and here we make a stand, 

Until we take the Yankee fleet, MacDonough doth com- 
mand ; 

We've the Growler and the Eagle, that from Smith we 
took away, 

And we'll have their noble fleet that lies anchored in the 
bay, 
We're the noble lads of Canada, etc. 

The last verses portray the growing dismay of the 
British, and the chorus changes to a dismal refrain, 
We've got too far from Canada, run for life, boys, run !" 
— sure to delight the audience who had been looking 
forward to this climax from the first. 

Considerable interest attaches to the question, What 
did the soldiers of the war of 1812 wear ? Theoretically, 
the militia were supposed to wear the uniform prescribed 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 281 

for regular troops. As a matter of fact, the militia 
wore everything, from their own homespun to uniforms 
of British soldiers which had been picked up 
upon battle fields. There was a regulation that every 
company should have at least a certain number, (thirty,) 
I believe,) of uniformed soldiers when they appeared 
upon parade, under penalty of disbandment, and of 
course the natural wish of the male bird for fine feath- 
ers operated strongly in support of this regulation. 
Kegularly equipped, the soldiers in a Light Infantry 
Corps, according to the militia law of 1809, appeared 
in "dark blue coats with white linings, scarlet facings, 
♦ollars and cuffs, and white underclothes, (trousers,) 
nd the buttons of the uniform shall be either of white 
yellow metal." In 1814 there was a movement 
toward economy in dress, experience having doubtless 
proved its expediency. An appeal for raising a new 
volunteer company says : 

"A cheap, neat and becoming uniform is fixed upon, 
calculated rather to give a soldierly appearance than to 
attract and please the eye of childhood — It is simply 
as follows : 

"A blue broadcloth roundabout, narrow rolling col- 
lar, single-breasted, buttoned in front with bell but- 
tons, a row each side extending to the top of the should- 
er, with one on each side the collar. Beaver of a 
straight crown, about nine inches high, helmet front, 
diminishing gradually toward the back, leaving there 
only half an inch brim ; a waving red plume, the staff 
of which supported by a stripe of broad gold lace, run- 



282 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

niug from the base or rim of the bat, and forming a 
cockade near the top, with a narrow band of lace. 
Cartouch box covered with red morocco, secured round 
the waist by a belt of the same, to which the bayonet 
scabbard will be affixed. Yellow nankeen pantaloons, 
black handkerchief, boots, together with a musket, com- 
plete the dress and equipment." 

The Artillery wore "long dark blae coats, with scar- 
let linings, facings, collars and cuffs;" some companies 
had "dark blue pantaloons, white vests, black gaiters 
or half boots, and round or cocked hats, as may be de- 
termined by the officers." Another company we find 
with "yellow buttons, white underclothes, and cocked 
hats with the cockade of the Army of the United 
States." There were Kifle Companies wearing "green 
frocks and pantaloons with yellow fringe, black gaiters^ 
round black hats ornamented with yellow buttons, 
black loops and short green feathers." 

Goyernor Tompkins, writing in 1810 a letter which 
enclosed a commission as Lieutenant Colonel, sa3^s: 

"The uniform of the station is a blue coat with hu^ 
facings, collar and cutfs, Yellow Epaulettes, buff under 
clothes. Cocked hat, or Chapeau bias with a Cockade 
ornamented by a Golden Eagle in the center and such 
additional mounting as pleases you. Myself and Aids, 
to distinguish ourselves from the inferior General Offi- 
cers and their staff, mount no feathers. The sword, 
belt, sash, spurs and boots are left to the taste of each 
aid who also puts embroidery or lace on his coat or 
not at his pleasure.'* 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 283 

The cavalry color was green, like the rifle companies, 
though with many distinguishing details. An order of 
Sept. 3, 1805, for the formation of a troop of horse in 
New York city : 

"The uniform of the Cavalry being left by Law to be 
fixed by the Commander in Chief, he directs that it 
consist for the Eegimental Field and Staff and Troop 
Officers, of a short Green Coat, faced with black Velvet 
collars, Cliffs and wings on the shoulders of the same, 
light buttons on the Lappelle, two on each side of the 
collar, three on the sleeve, and three on the skirt. The 
buttons to be small, yellow and of a conical form, the 
button-holes and along the edges of the Coat (the bot- 
tom excepted) to be trimmed with gold lace or yellow 
silk binding, the buttons and Epaulettes of the like 
colour, with buff Vest, buckskin Breeches and long 
black top't boots." 

Examples of all these different uniforms might 
sometimes be seen in a militia regiment upon train- 
ing days and musters. After the war these trainings, 
made a grand holiday for the entire population, be- 
came more important and more punctiliously attend- 
ed than ever before, and the next generation grew up 
well versed in military tactics, at least as presented 
V>y the militia officers of a country town. Many an 
old sword and uniform which has been preserved as a 
rehc of the war of 1812 dates no farther back than the 
militia trainings of the years succeeding the war. 
East of the Black river the regular places for mili- 
tarv exercise were at Barber's Point and North-west 



284 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Bay. Men do more than fifty years old can now re- 
member the trainings in the village, sometimes on 
the flat just below the Carpenter house, sometimes in 
the public square in front of Person's Hotel. The nat- 
ural desire to wash the dust out of one's throat after 
the execution of arduous maneuvers on a warm spring 
day, together with the spirit of convivialit}^ sure to be 
awakened at the sight of old comrades, led to habits of 
indulgence which sometimes turned the whole occasion 
into a farce, and partly on this account, and partly be- 
cause Uncle Sam has come to depend upon volunteers 
for the fighting of his battles the observance of the da}^ 
fell into disrepute, and has been long a thing of the 
past. 

List of Westport Men in Active Service During the War of 1812, 
Gen. Daniel Wright, Brigadier-General of the 40th 
Brigade of Militia. He fought at Bunker Hill, served 
eight months under Col. Jo)m Stark and a year under 
Col. Samuel Beed, then in June of 1777 was sent to 
Ticonderoga, with his regiment, to await the attack of 
Burgoyne. When St. Clair evacuated Ticonderoga he 
went with the retreating army, fought at Saratoga, and 
saw the surrender of Burgoyne. After coming into Es- 
sex coaiity he was made '2nd Major, March 24, 1802, 1st 
Major in 1806 and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant 
in 1807. Then February 11th, 1811, he was commis- 
sioned Brigadier-General, which rank he held until he 
resigned from the service March 22, 1816, at the age of 
sixty. 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 285 

GeD, Luman Wadbams. Was commissioned Cap- 
tain Feb. 11th, 1811, and 2ud Major March 2nd, 1814. 
After the war he was promoted Colonel of the 37th reg- 
iment of Militia, March 21st, 1821, was made Briga- 
dier-General of the 40th Brigade, following Gen. Ran- 
som Noble, who had followed Gen. Daniel Wright. 
He moved from Lewis into Westport in 1822. 

Major David B. McNeil. Commissioned Adjutant of 
the 37th regiment Feb. 11th, 1811. On March 2nd, 
1814, he was commissioned Brigade Major and In- 
spector upon General Wright's stafi*. He moved from 
Essex to Westport in 1822, remaining six years. 

Captain Asa Aikens, more commonly known as Judge 
Aikens. He entered West Point Nov. 30th, 1807, and 
was commissioned Captain in the 31st regiment, U. S. A. 
April 30th, 1813. His regiment was recruited in Ver- 
mont, and commanded by Col. Daniel Dana. He moved 
from Windsor, Vt., to Westport in 1843. 

Sergeant William Guy Hunter. Enlisted July 30th, 
1814, at Windsor, Yt., at the age of nineteen. He was 
a Sergeant in Capt. Ira Williams' company, the 26th 
New York Infantry. After the war was over he went 
to the Military Academy at West Point, where he re- 
mained three j^ears. Moved from Windsor, Yt., to 
Westport in 1838. 

Lieutenant Piatt Rogers Halstead. Commissioned 
3rd Lieutenant in 29th Infantry, U. S. A., April 30th, 
1813 ; promoted 2ud Lieutenant Feb. 20th, 1814, and 
honorably discharged June 15, 1815, upon the reduc- 
tion of the arm}' to a peace estabhshment. The Col- 



286 HISTORY OF WESTFOKT 

oiiel of the 29tli liifaDtry, (mainly a Dutchess county 
regiment,) was CoL Melanethon Smith of Plattsburgh, 
son of Judge Melauctlion Smith of Poughkeepsie. 

The tliree men last named, Captain Aikens, Lieuten- 
ant Halstead and Sergeant Hunter, were the only offi- 
cers of the regular army (in distinction from the mi- 
litia) who lived in Westport. 

As for the oi'gauization of the militia, we find by re- 
ferring to the iVJilitary Minutes of the Council of Ap- 
pointment of the State of Kew York that as early as 
April 2, 1796, a new company was formed "of the mil- 
itia at Pleasant Yale and Bettsborough," of which Eli- 
jah Bishop was made Captain and Elijah Newell Lieu- 
tenant. Bishop was afterward a Major, and Elijah 
Newell became later a Captain in the 37th. Then in 
1798 a new regiment was formed of Clinton County 
militia (then including Essex County) to be command- 
ed b}' Lt. Col. Daniel Boss, in which Charles Hatch 
was made Paymaster. Further search in these volum- 
inous Council Minutes reveals these names and titles 
of men belonging to our town. 

Major Hezekiah Barber. He was a Captain in 1800, 
2n(l Major in 1806, and first Major in Daniel Wright's' 
regiment in 1808. Dying in 1810, he did not live to 
see the war. 

The Lobdells seem to have been a warlike race. Syl- 
vanus Lobdell was a Quartermaster in 1802. Whenj 
the first artillery company in the county was formed,, 
July 3, 1804, Boughton Lobdell was made 2nd Lieut. 
In 1808 we find John Lobdell cornet in the cavalry/ 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 287, 

troop of Theodorus Koss, in 1811 1st Lt., in 1812 Cap- 
tain and in 1817 resigned. Jacob Lobdell was a Cap- 
tain of riflemen in 1819. 

We find also mentioned : Capt. Nathaniel Hinkley, 
Lt .Thomas Hinkley, Capt. Joel Finney, Capt. Elijah 
Storrs, Capt. George Andrews and Lt. Samuel W. 
Felt. 

Captain Levi Frisbie was the most seriously wound- 
ed of any of our men in the battle of Plattsburgh, los- 
ing one leg. There is a reference to him in a letter 
from General Mooers to General Wright as follows : 

"Capt Frisbee, by whom I had this, has called on 
me. I have signed the certificate to which your name 
is attached, or rather made a certificate on the back of 
that, yet his name ought to be annexed to your return 
of the disabled and wounded, which return I wish to 
have, with those of the killed, as soon as you can con- 
veniently obtain them. I expect soon to set out for 
Alban}^ and wish to take them with me. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
Benj. Mooers. 
Plattsburgh, 28 July, 1815. 

To Brig. Gen. Daniel Wright, Elizabethtown." 
Capt. Jesse Braman gave his whole company break- 
fast at Braman's Mills on the morning when they start- 
ed for the scene of the battle of Plattsburgh. 

Two Eosigns of the 37th are mentioned, John Gree- 
ley, Jr., and Vine T. Bingham. Ensign Greeley was 
wounded in the shoulder at the battle of Plattsburgh. 



2Sa HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

His father fought at Bunker Hill. John H. Low was 
an Ensign in 1821. 

Ensign Jason Dunster was in the service in New 
Hampshire, being stationed at Portsmouth. He came 
to Westport in 1821. 

Lieut. Nathan DeLano of Ticonderoga, 2nd lieuten- 
ant in Capt. Mackenzie's cavalry company, seems to 
have come to Westport with his son, Joseph R. DeLano, 
and was buried in this town. 

Diadorus Holcomb was Paymaster of the 37th in 
1809, was made Surgeon's Mate March 2, 1814, and as 
such did good service at the battle of Plattsburg, being 
afterward promoted Surgeon. 

In 1821 the Eev. Cyrus Comstock was appointed 
Chaplain of the 37th. 



Privates. 

It must be remembered that, theoretically, every man 
in the township, over the age of eighteen and un- 
der that of forty-five, belonged to the militia by no 
choice of his own, and was liable to military duty at any 
moment upon the requisition of his superior officer. 
He did not enlist, and he did not volunteer; he was a 
soldier because he was a citizen. Nevertheless, the quo- 
tas required of the several military districts would be 
naturally filled by the men most willing to serve, and 
this made it virtually a volunteer service. There are 
many classes of exempts, such as Government cfiicers. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 289 

clergymeD, ferrymen, postmasters, mail carriers, inn 
keepers, etc., as well as all those physically incapable. 

My sources of information have been these: 1st, the 
list of soldiers' graves decorated every Memorial Day 
by the S. C. Dwyer Post of the G. A. R., furnished me 
by the kindness of Mr. Edward Osborne. 2nd, notes 
made by Mr. Henry Harmon Noble from the war rec- 
ords at Albany, freely given me so far as I was able to 
make use of them. 3rd, Military Minutes of the Coun- 
cil of xlppointment of the State of New York, 1783- 
1821. 

I am sorry not to have been able to spend the time 
to make out a complete list of names for each cemetery 
for use upon Decoration Day, but this would now re- 
quire many hours' work in visiting the most remote 
parts of the town, and I will give the names as I find 
them upon my notes. 

Isaac Alden, Samuel Anderson, Jeduthan Barnes 
Joshua Bennett, Ephraim Bull, Joseph Call, Tilling- 
hast Cole, Seymour Curtis, John Daniels, Joshua Dan- 
iels, Archibald Dunton, Elijah Duntou, David Clark 
and Darius Ferris, (in the Vermont militia,) Asa 
Farnsworth, Gideon Hammond, Joseph M. Havens, 
Ira Henderson, (wounded at the battle of Plattsburgh,) 
Johnson Hill, Abner Holcomb, Amos Holcomb, Asa 
Kinney, Waite B. Lawrence, Erastus Loveland, Wilson 
Low, Piatt Rogers Sheldon, Ebeuezer Sherman, Wil- 
liam Viall. 

Buried at Wadhams, besides Gen. Wadhams, Capt. 
Braman and Ensign Dunster. are Benjamin Hardy, Joel 



290 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

FreDcb, Salmon Cooper, Thomas Hadley, and John 
Whitney. 

In a Hst of invalid pensioners we find, besides the 
names of Daniel Wright, Levi Frisbie and John Gree- 
ley, these names: John Viall, Eldad Kellogg, David and 
Samuel Pangborn and Ebenezer Newell, who was a fif- 
er. Among the men from CHnton county are Levi 
Stockwell, Samuel Cook and John A. Ferris, which are 
certainly Westport names and probably those of men 
who afterward moved into town. In this pension list 
I find Westport surnames, like Allen, Barnes, Good- 
speed, Johnson, Nichols, Smith and Snow, which may 
indicate citizens of our town, but which I hesitate to 
claim because I know nothing about them. 

Humphrey Sherman, (ancestor of all the Shermans 
now living in Westport,) served on theNiagara frontier, 
a private in Capt. Trowbridge's company, Lt. Col. 
Henry Bloom's 1st regiment, Enlisted at Hector, Sen- 
eca Co., Sept. 7, 1813, discharged at Fort Niagara 
Dec. 17, 1813. He afterward moved to Essex, and 
then to Westport. He was a brother of Nathan 
Sherman, who settled in Moriah and was the ancestor 
of the Sherman family connected with the iron mines 
there. 

As for the number of men whom we sent into the 
field during this war, I do not suppose that we had at 
that time one hundred and fifty men subject to militia 
duty.I have given the names of fifty and I doubt if there 
were many more who actually marched under military 
orders, aside from the drills of the training days. 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 291 

Ira HeudersoD and Samuel Anderson were both com- 
monly addressed as "Captain," but this does not seem 
to have been in either case a military title, but rather 
one used in recognition of the command of sailing ves- 
sels on the lake. Similarly, the tombstone upon which is 
cut "Capt. Jacob Halstead" must not be taken as evi- 
dence of military rank, since Jacob Halstead was born in 
1800, and therefore only a boy of twelve when war was 
declared, but he afterward owned aud sailed the schoou- 
er Troy. 

RevoKitionary Soldiers. 

There are but few graves of men who fought in the 
War of Independence to be found in Westport, from 
the fact that settlement of this northeru region did not 
begin uutil most of the Revolutionar}^ soldiers were too 
old and too tired with their strenuous lives to join the 
army of the pioneers. Many of the first land-owners, 
like Piatt Rogers,"^" Gen. Woolsey and the Platts, had 
served in the Continental Line, but they neither lived 
nor died here. Our most distinguished soldier, of the 
Revolution as well as of the second war with Great 
Britain, was Gen. Daniel Wright whose military rec- 
ord has already been given. 

♦Piatt Rogers served in two Dutchess County regiments. Col. Brinckerhoff 's and 
Col. Hopkins, and in both regiments was in Capt. Brinckerhoff's company. He 
had a nephew, Ananias Rogers Sackett, (son of his sister Mary, who married Na- 
thaniel Sackett, member of the Council of Safety,) who was also in Col. Brincker- 
hoff's regiment, Capt. Van Wyck's company. Piatt Rogers was often given 
the title of Captain in our local records, but his right to that rank I cannot prove. 
By the way, there is no known relationship between Robert Rogers the Ranger of 
the old French war, and Piatt Rogers the Road-maker of Northern New York. 
Rogers pond and Rogers brook in Schroon are named alter the Road-maker, from 
his survey of the road patent along the west shore of Schroon lake. 



292 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

John Greeley, born 1759, died 1852, fought at the 
battle of Bunker Hill as a boy of sixteen. He came 
into Westport from Brookfield in 1828. 

Ebenezer Durfee's tombstone declares him to have 
been "a soldier of the Revolution." 

Samuel Pangborn died in this town in 1843, and the 
notice of his death in the Essex County Times declares 
that he was aged 86 years, and had been a soldier of 
the Revolution, fighting at Brandywine and Yorktown. 
In the list of pensioners after the war of 1812 we find 
the names of both Samuel and David Pangboru. This 
family seems to have been here very early, as one 
Joseph Pangburn was made pathmaster at the first 
town meeting, in 1798. 

John Whitney served in the Revolution. 

It is very likely that many of our earl}^ settlers who 
w^ere old enough, like Enos Loveland and John Hal- 
stead, may have fought the battles of their country be- 
fore their emigration, but in the absence of definite 
family record, it is a long and toilsome task to settle 
the question by research. Ill 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 293 

Quoth the cedar to the reeds and rushes, 

"Water-grass, you know not what I do; 
Know not of my storms, nor of my hushes, 

And — I know not you." 
Quoth the reeds and rushes, "Wind ! O waken ! 

Breath, O wind, and set our answer free ! 
For we have no voice, of you forsaken. 

For the cedar-tree. " 

Quoth the hero, dying, whelmed in glory, 

"Many blame me, few have understood ; 
Ah, my folk, to you I leave a story, — 

Make its meaning good." 
Quoth the folk, "Sing, poet ! teach us, prove us ; 

Surel}' we shall learn the meaning then ; 
Wound us with a pain divine, O move us. 

For this man of men." 

— Jean Ingelow's "Winstanley. " 



Quoth our dead-and-buried forebears, lying 

Deep in ancient acres of the town, 
"Look, the tombstones that our children gave us 

Grudge us our renown. 
Go, and when ye find a heart reflective, 

Where the thrill of kinship shall not fail, 
Of the lives we lived within your borders, 

Tell the homely tale." 

C. H. R. 



294 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

YIII. 

1815 to Civil ^Var. 

After the war the town settled back into its old life, 
the same, and yet not the same. Men's pulses had 
been quickened by a call to action which had wider 
reaching consequences than the daily life of the farm- 
er and wood chopper. They felt themselves of the 
more importance since they had been called on to fight 
battles of the nation, and their acquaintance with 
the older civilization of the seaboard had increased 
marvelously. The frontier life, "at once more romantic 
and more sordid than on the civilized seaboard," as 
Fiske says of a similar condition, had become in many 
ways less sordid and perhaps less romantic. After the 
war the men on this western shore of the lake felt 
themselves for the first time citizens of the state of New 
York. A large portion of the men who fought in the 
war were born in New England, and could but feel 
themselves emigrants not long from home, with mem- 
ories and sympathies reaching backward to the old 
homes which seemed so much nearer than New York 
or even Albany. Now, with the growth of the Repub- 
lican, or Anti-Federalist, party as the predominant po- 
litical sentiment of the town, the last link that bound 
them to Federalist New England was snapped. Along 
the Hudson river, from the days of the first Dutch 
comers. New England had been considered a foreign 
country and its people aliens, but in the Champlain 
Yalley it had been otherwise. Here, and especially in 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 295 

Elizabethtowu and Westport, (which had not the pro- 
portion of Dutchess county immigrants found farther 
to the northward,) New England was the beloved moth- 
er country which was out-grown rather than cast off, 
as the development of the town progressed. 

Immigration increased after the war, probably in 
nearly equal proportions from the east and south. The 
necessary facilitation of land and water ways for the 
transportation of men and military stores from the 
south had made travel from that direction less dijBficult. 
Albany was nearer after the v/ar than it had been be- 
fore it. Commerce had been helped and not hindered 
by the necessities of the war, and by the smuggling 
which reached its height just before. The industry of 
boat-building had increased immensely, and it is 
said that many of the first wharves were built at this 
time. In regard to Westport this has been impossible 
to verify, and it can only be said that the conjecture 
that Charles Hatch built our first wharf, at the foot of 
Washington street, during the war, is exceedingly 
plausible. 

Colonial dress and customs still prevailed. The 
spinning wheel and loom were in every household, and 
homespun was the universal wear. There were more 
log cabins than frame houses in town, and the center 
of evory home was the great chimney with its fire- 
places. Stoves were almost unheard of, and all the 
cooking was done over an open fire or in a brick ov- 
en. Matches were not yet invented, and if you were 
so careless as to let the fire die out, you must light 



296 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

it again with flint and tinder, or send one of the 
children to the nearest neighbor with a close covered 
iron kettle in which to bring home some coals. The 
only lights were tallow candles, letters were folded and 
sealed without envelopes, pins were just beginning to 
be manufactured, and there were more foreign coins in 
circulation than United States money, but not much 
of either, as all exchanges of value were made by the 
medium of barter. The difference between a "York 
shilling" and a "Vermont shilling" was of vital import- 
ance to remember, as the former was twelve . and one- 
half cents, and the latter but nine-pence, and accounts 
were still kept in pounds, shillings and pence. • 

In regard to the means of communication, early 
Westport was like early colonial Virginia, — all journeys 
were made on horseback or by water. If General 
Wright had occasion to go to Plattsburgh, either he 
called the horse out of the pasture, saddled and mount- 
ed and rode away, or he went down to the lake shore at 
Northwest Bay or at Essex and found some sailing 
craft which would take him thither. Lake travel was 
easier than land travel and more full of interest. Those 
were the days of the great rafts sent into Canada. As 
Robinson says: "The great pines, that fifty years be- 
fore had been reserved for the masting of his Majesty's 
navy, were felled now by hardy yeomen who owed al- 
legiance to no eaithly king, and, gathered into enor- 
mous rafts, voyaged slowly down the lake, impelled 
by sail and sweep. They bore as their burden bar- 
rels of potash that had been condensed from the ashes, 



^ HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT 297 

of their slain brethren." Bales of furs went often, too, 
and when the raftsmen came back on sloop or schoon- 
er from St. John's they brought salt and manufac- 
tured goods, often of European make. 

These facts give us an outline of the town in 1815, 
when the division was made between the present towns 
of Elizabethtown and Westport. That it was neces- 
sary to divide the town shows a large increase of pop- 
ulation, with the corresponding rise of the civic spir- 
it. The obvious boundary line was the Black river 
in a part of its course, with the mountainous area, 
which stretched through the southern part of the 
town divided by a north-and-south line drawn from 
the river to the town line. The Hon. Charles Hatch 
was on the committee of division, and the matter was 
soon settled. That the settlement at North-west Bay 
had already become the commercial centre would ap- 
pear from the name adopted. The legal change was 
made March 24, 1815, and the first town meeting of the 
new town was held "on the first Tuesday in April," 
at the house of Charles Hatch, which stood on the 
site of the large brick house so long owned by F. H. 
Page, and now by D. F. Payne. Hatch's house was at 
that time used as an inn. 

The proceedings of the town meeting were entered by 
the clerk in a large, leather bound book, bright and 
new, with "Westport Town Becords" stamped on the 
back in neat gold letters. It was "made and sold (with 
the old fashioned long "s") at the "Troy Bookstore, 
8igu of the Bible." Now the glaze is worn from the 



298 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

leather, the gold letters are tarDished, one cover is 
loose, and the old book no longer represents a future, 
but an ever-receding past. It was in use until 1870, 
when a new book was bought, not because the old one 
was full, but because the old-fashioned paper, made 
with a surface adapted to the use of quill pens, was 
very difficult to write upon with a steel pen. The most 
perilous period during the life of the old town book 
was at the time of the great, fire of 1876, when the 
building containing the town clerk's office, (the corner 
store,) was burned. As the town has never provided 
a safe or an iron box for the keeping of town records, 
it was only a chance that this book was saved. Per- 
haps the next fire may not spare it. 

This is the first entry in the old book, written in a 
careful, plain, old-fashioned hand, with ink which is 
faded but not illegible. 



AVestport Tow^ii Reeoixis. 

The first Town Meeting in the Town of Westport, County 
of Essex and State of New York, is opened at the house of 
Charles Hatch in said Town, on the first Tuesday in April; 
agreeable to a Law of the Legislature passed 1815. 

1. Voted Enos Loveland Supervisor. 

'1. Bouton LobdelL Town Clerk. 

3. John Lobdell, Gideon Hammond, Diadorus Holcomb, 
Assessors. 

4. Levi Frisby, Collector. (This office he held until 
1828.) 

5. Joseph Stacy, Charles Hat'ch, Overseers of the Poor. 
(1 Jesse Brayman, Gideon Hammond, Crosby McKin- 

zey, Commissioners of Highways. 

7. Charles Hatch, Bouton Lobdell, Diadorus Holcomb, 
Commissioners of Schools. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 299 

8. Uriah Palmer, Samue] Cook, Junr., John Lobclell, 
luspectors of Schools. 

9. Amos Smith, Jeduthau Barnes, Levi Alexander, 
CoQstables. 

10. Elijah Ano^ier, Daniel Wright, Silvauus Kintrsley, 
William Denton, Charles Hatch, Nathaniel Hinkley, James 
Coll, Uriah Palmer, Fence Viewers. 

11. Elijiah Angrier, William Storrs, Charles Hatch, Elij 
ah Denton, Poundmasters. 

12. Ralph Walton, Elijah Dunton, John Ferris, Junr.. 
Caleb P. Cole, Thomas EmmoQS, Jesse Hardey, Samuel 
Denton, Warren Harper, John Daniels, 3rd, William Storrs, 
William Denton, Elijah Storrs, Joseph Stacy, Harvey 
Sumner, Overseers of Hicrhways. 

13. To Raise Double the sum allowed by the State for 
the Support of Common Schools. 

1-4. To Raise ten Dollars to Purchase Town Books. 

15. To Raise tw^enty Dollars for the Support of the 
Poor. 

16. Horned Cattle Commoners from the first of April 
till the first of November no Loncjer. 

17. The owner of a Ram Shall pay five Dollars that lets 
him Run at large from the tirst of September to the fifteenth 
nf November. 

18. The Town Meeting adjourned to the house of Bou- 
ton Lobdell, the first Tuesday of April 1816. 

Division of Highway Districts iu the Town of Westport 
for the year 1815. 

No. 1. Beginning at the South Line of the Town on the 
Lake Road theuce North to the north bank of Mullius 
Brook. (Ralph Walton, overseer.) 

2. North to south end of the first Bridge North of Colls 
Mills, including the Road west to Asa A. Andrews as fai- 
as the Shearman Brook. (Elijah Dunton.) 

3. Beginning at the south end of the first Bridge North 
of ColTs jlills thence North to the South Line of Holcomb's 
farm Including both Roads to widow Barber's ferry. 
(John Ferris, Jr.) 

4. Beginning. at the south line of Holcombs farm thence 
North to the two mile niarke Between N. W. Bay and 
Coats' xMill Including the Road to Essex to the east. (Caleb 
P. Cole.) 

5. Line of the Ferris lot Including the Road to the 



SOO HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

east line of Silvanus Kingsl6y's oald field. (Thomas Em- 
mons.) 

6. Beginninof at the East line of the Ferris Lot, thence 
North to the town line, Including both Roads to Rock 
harbor and the Road by Obediah Vaughan's place to the 
road that Leads from Coats Mill to N. W. Bay. (Jesse 
Hardy.) 

7. Beginning at the two Mile mark between N. W. Bay 
and Coats Mills, thence North to the Town line, Including 
the road from Brayman's east to the Town line. (Samuel 
Denton.) 

8. Beginning at the West end of the Bridge at Coats 
Mill, thence west to East line of Joel Finney 's farm. (War- 
ren Harper.) 

9. Beginning at the east line of Silvanus Kingsley 
farm, thence westerly on the New Court House Road to 
the west line of the same, including the Road from Sam'l 
Storrs farm, thence north to Jonas Morgan's Barn, In- 
cluding the Road from Joel Finney's east line to New 
Court House Road. (John Daniels, 3rd.) 

10. Beginning at the Town line near Morgan's New 
Forge, thence East to the Road leading from Coats' Mill to 
Joel Finney's. (William Storrs.) 

11. Beginning at the town line near Abraham Slaugh- 
ters, theace easterly by J. Storrs till it Intersects the 
Court House Road near Silvanus Kingsley Including the 
.road to Eldad Kellogg's. (William Denton.) 

12. Beginning at the town line near Southwell's Forge, 
thence east to the Bridge west of Halstead's field, Includ- 
ing the road by Aaron Bingham's. (Elijah Storrs.) 

13. Beginning at the Southwell road near Abner 
Slaughter's, thence south to the south lineof theLowfttrm, 
Including the road by Hammond's to the aforesaid South- 
well road. (Joseph Stacy.) 

14. Beginning at the Southwell road near Esq. Love- 
land's, thence easterly by John Nicholds and Stacys till it 
intersects the lake road near Elijah Dunton's. (Harvey 
Sumner.) 

15. Beginning at the Crotch of the Road Between Shar- 
man's and Mullins Brook, thence Northerly by George H. 
Andrews until it Intersects the Road by Joseph Stacys, 
Including the road from Howard's east to the Sharmau 
Bi'ook including the road to Danl. M 'Con ley. 

Signed John Lobdell and Gideon Hammond, 
Commissioners of Highways. 



i 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 301 

Then there are alterations of old roads and- survey 
bills of new ones, with the surveyors' directions, too 
tedious to recount, signed by Samuel Cook, Jr., and by 
Ithar Judd as surveyors. • " 

Enos Loveland was already supervisor of the undi- 
vided town of Elizabethtown at the time of the division. 
He had been supervisor in 1809, 1810 and 1811. Then 
for two years Azel Abel filled the office, and in 1814 
Enos Loveland was again elected. Bouton Lobdell 
was Sheriff of the county in 1815 as well as our town 
clerk. He and his brother John were doubtless sons 
of Sylvan us Lobdell, first clerk of the town of Eliza- 
bethtown. 

"The new court house road" was the present stage 
road from Westport to Elizabethtown. It would seem 
that up to this time the regular route to Pleasant Val- 
ley from the Bay was by way of Meigsville. Early 
roads followed high ground, avoiding marshes and 
swamps, and it took a great deal of corduroy to make 
the present road passable. Since Enos Loveland lived 
on the most travelled road to the county court house 
from the Bay, his house was much more accessible for 
the transaction of town business than would appear at 
first thought. 

"The road from Howard's" was a part of the back 
road. The allusion is not, I think, to the present fami- 
ly of Howards, who came in somewhat later from Ver- 
mont, but to a "Deacon Howard" who came from the 
south by way of Pleasant Valley. July 12, 1817, "Dea- 
con Howard and wife'" presented a letter to the Baptist 



W2 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

charcli which was accepted. Nov. 12, 1817, the death 
of Bro. Keudrick Howard is recorded in the church 
book. On Nov. 13, 1819, a letter from the church "at 
Jamaica," (probably on Long Island,) was presented by 
"Sister Phila Howard. ' Deacon Howard w'as often 
mentioned after this in the church transactions, until 
February of 1822 letters of dismission were given "Dea- 
con Howard and wife and sister Phila Howard," indi- 
cating that it was their purpose to move away. A son 
of this Deacon Howard, Leland Howard, received the 
degree of iV. M. from Middlebury College in 1828, and 
became a Baptist minister, preaching in Troy and in 
Rutland. James Howard, son of Leland, was at one 
time Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut. 

This year and the next the Angiers came in from 
New Hampshire, and settled in the northern part of 
the town, near the Essex line, in the vicinity of "Angier 
Hill." There were three brothers, Calvin, Elijah and 
Luther, grandsons of Silas Angier, a Revolutionary 
soldier." 

*Calvin Angier's first wife was Betsy Chandler, of Fitzwilliam, N. H. She 
had one child, Eliza, who afterward married Sj'lvester Young. The second wife 
was Polly Denison, from Walpole, N. H. Her children were. il 

I Nancy Loraine, married a Hammond and lived in Ticonderoga. J 

2. William Denison, married Amy Revnolds. 

,^. Mary Ann, married Lorenzo Gibbs. 

4. Merlin Ward, married Jane Gibbs, 

Elijah Angier was thrice married. His first wife was Orilla Chandler, and her 
children were Calvin, Lucy and Levi. His second wife was Orissa Chandler, 
presumably the irister of Orilla, and she had no children. His third wife, whom i 
he married after coming to Westport, was Narcissa Loveland, daughter of Enos, 
and her children were Orilla, Charles, Perrin, Persis and Salinda. Mary Jane « 
and Anson died in infancy. 

The wife of Luther Angrier was Sarah Huntly.and their children were Emily 
Luther, Aaron, George, Margaret and Allen. 

i 



I 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT SOS 

1816. 

Town Meeting opened agreeable to adjournment at the 
house of Bouton Lobdell on the first Tuesday in April, 
1816. 

1. Voted Charles Hatch Supervisor. 

2. Bouton Lobdell, Town Clerk. 

8. John Lobdell Joseph Stacy, Jesse Braman, Assessors. 

4. Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

5. Joseph Stacey, Enos Loveland, Poor Masters. 

6. John Lobdell, Gideon Hammond, Joseph Stacey, 
Corns, of Highways. 

7. Charles Hatch, Samuel Cook, Jr., Bouton Lobdell, 
Com. of Common Schools. 

- 8. Levi Frisbie, Amos Smith, Timothy Sheldon, Con- 
stables. 

9. Timothy Sheldon, Asa A. Andrews, John Lobdell, 
Enos Loveland, Jesse Braman, John Weston, Inspectors 
of Common Schools. 

10. Timothy Sheldon, Elijah Dunton, Caleb P. Cole, 
Joseph Stacey, Joel Finney, Daniel Wright, John Weston, 
Edos Loveland. Fence Viewers and Pound Masters. 

11. Amos Pangborn, Thomas Dunton, Georo-e B. Reyn- 
olds, Thomas Emmons, Daniel Wrio"ht, Jesse Braman. 
John Harper. Joel Finney, John Lewis, Samuel Storrs, 
Eoos Loveland, John Stringham, John Nicholds, Asa A. 
Andrews. Overseers of Highways. 

12. To raise double the sum allowed by the State for 
the support of Common Schools. 

13. To raise twenty Dollar's for the Support of the Poor. 

14. Town Meeting adjourned to the house of Bouton 
Lobdell on the first Tuesday in April, 1817. 

Survey of the road from the house of Almon Phillips in 
the town of Essex to the upper falls in the town of Ticon- 
deroga, according to an act of the Legislature passed in 
the session of 1814. 

The points mentioned are Thompson's house, Northwest 
Bay. DuntDn's, Deacon Uriah Palmer's, and "opposite 
Stone's house." Surveyed by Jonathan Wallis. Jr.. 1814. 
Signed by Charles Hatch, Levi Thompson, Ransom Noble. 
Commissioners. Recorded March 20, 1817. 

I am not sure where the house of Boutou Lobdell, in 

which the second town meeting was held, stood in 1816. 



304 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

I have been told that he built the house in the north 
part of the village, at the top of the "Mclntyre hill," 
now owned by Dr. Morse of Boston, but it is doubtful 
if this house was built as early as 1816. 

The summer which followed this town meeting was 
known as "the cold summer," or "eighteen hundred and 
starved to death," when it is said that snow fell dur- 
ing every month of the year. Some accounts modify 
this by excepting August. It is certain that it was a 
season phenomenally cold and dry, with an almost uni- 
versal failure of crops. It was felt through all New 
England, as town histories of that section attest. Al- 
most every family has legends to relate of the experi- 
ences of that year. In my own family we tell the story 
of my grandmother, then a little girl seven years old, 
being sent out into the garden to pick green currants 
in the snow, because a snow storm had fallen after the 
currants were formed, and it was plain that there was 
no use waiting for the fruit to ripen. 

In this year the Red Bird line of stages, running 
fiom New York to Montreal, was established by Peter 
Comstock, and marks a great advance in the means of 
travel. State aid in the maintenance of the principal 
roads followed, and Westport took another step nearer 
the seaboard. 

Not until March 23 of 181B did the Baptist church, 
by a vote of its members, change its name from 
"Northwest Bay Church" to "First Baptist Church uf 
Westport." And at almost the same time another 
church was formed in the town. It began as the Bap- 



I 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 305 

tist church had begun, as a necessity for the spiritual 
life of settlers from older communities who had brought 
their religion with them when they came. 

Since 1796 this region had formed part of a Metho- 
dist circuit, with a few heroic preachers who threaded 
the wilderness in search of souls, and it is quite likely 
that Westport had been visited by some of them before 
this, but we have no record before the spring of 1816, 
when Moses Amadou was sent to preach in the south- 
ern part of th6 town. Here the most stirring and 
prominent Methodist was Capt. Levi Frisbie, not at all 
the kind of man to hide his light under a bushel, 
whether the business on hand was fighting or praying. 
When the first class was organized he was its leader, 
and there were but four other members. One was his 
wife, Sally, another was Amy Hatch, w^ife of Charles 
Hatch, and there were also Clara Low and Lydia Dun- 
ton. Soon after were added John Low, Mrs. Good- 
speed, John Ferris and Patience his wife, Mrs, Widow 
Martin, Lucy Loveland, wife of Erastus, and Betsey 
Farnsworth, daughter of Charles and Amy Hatch. 
Most of these people lived south of the village, except 
Mrs. Hatch and Mrs. Loveland, who lived at Northwest 
Bay. Preaching was in the school house on the lake 
road, in the district which we now call "Graeffe's," and 
sometimes at the Bay, as we find the next year that the 
Baptists gave up the use of the school -house there to 
their Methodist brethren "one-eighth of the time," 
which is supposed to mean that the Methodists expected 
the circuit rider onlv once in two months. The social 



306 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

meetings were held at the house of Captain Frisbie, a 
log house standing where the stone house now stands 
which his sou Levi so bng occupied, at Fisher's Mill 
on Mullein brook, and at Low's, which was near the 
place where Henry Sheldon now lives. The early quar- 
terly meetings to which people came from all parts of 
the Ticonderoga Circuit, (which "embraced all the 
country south of the top of the mountains between the 
Ausable river and Willsborough to Lake George,")were 
held in Captain Frisbie's barn, and afterward in the 
grove in the village just north of the Sherwood cottage. 
We know that in September of 1816 Captain Amos 
A. Durfey was on board his sloop Chamjolaw, as Sam- 
uel Cook had afterward occasion to make affidavit (in 
a case where it necessary to prove an alibi) that he 
went with him to Whitehall. The famous lake pilot, 
Phinea-s Durfey, belonged to this family of Westport 
Durfeys, and they all had a natural love for the water. 

1817. 

TowD Meeting opened agreeble to adjournment in the 
house of Bouton Lobdell in said town on the first Tuesday 
in April, 1817. 

1. Voted John Lobdell, Supervisor. 

2. Bouton Lobdell, Town Clerk. 

3. Gideon Hammond, Timothy Shelden, Euos Lovelaud, 
Assessors. 

4. Gideon Hammond, Timothy Shelden, Jesse Braman, 
Com. of Highways. 

5. Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

6. Enos Loveland, Joseph Stacey, Poormasters. 

7. Bouton Lobdell, Samuel Cook, Jr.. Diodoras Hol- 
comb, Commissioners of Common Schools. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 307 

8. Levi Frisbie, Warren Harper, Charles Fisher, 
Charles B. Hatch, Constables. 

9. Jesse Bi-amau, Daniel Wri^^ht, Caleb P. Cole, Sam- 
uel Cook, Jr., Timothy Sheldeu, George H. Andrews, John 
Lobdell, Samuel Storrs, Fence Viewers and Pound Masters. 

10. Thomas Walton, Thomas Dunton, Jr., Asa Love- 
land, Jacob Mathews, Calvin Angier, John Weston, Sam- 
uel Denton. Johnson Hill, Isaac Knapp, Amos Smith, Ly- 
man Smith, David C handler, John Nichols, George H. 
Andrews, Overseers of Highways. 

11. To raise seventy-five dollars for the support of the 
poor. 

12. Piatt R. Halstead, John Lobdell, Enos Loveland, 
Timothy Shelden, John Weston, Asa A. Andrews, In- 
spectors of Common Schools. 

13. That the Ballance due of ten Dollars — Raised in 
1815 for the Purchase of Town Books Being three Dollars 
& thirtj^ four cents, now in the hands of Enos Loveland, 
Esqr., be applied for the purchase of Ihree Locks for Elec- 
tion Boxes, and residue (if any) to the support of the Poor. 

On the night of January 15, 1817, occurred a great 
domestic calamity, and one which, occasioned much ex- 
citement in the village. It was the burning of the 
house at Ba"sin Harbor. The first house stood, like 
the present one, in full sight across the water, and I 
suppose no member of the household of John Hal- 
stead ever rose in the morning without turning a first 
outward look toward the old home. To the oldest son, 
whose birth place it had been, it was almost more a home 
than his father's house, and during the war which was 
only three years in the past his most vivid experiences 
had been connected with it. There Commodore Mac- 
donough and his officers had sat in the parlor on the 
second floor, with their wine glasses and tobacco, while 
the great kitchen below was filled with sailors drinking 
their ale, and the boyish lieutenant had been proud to 



SOS HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

driuk with the other officers, and to feel himself a part 
of it all — that potent esprit die corps seen nowhere else 
as it is seen in army life. And now instead of the 
friendly glitter of windows in the morning sun, he saw 
a column of smoke rising from roofless and blackened 
walls, and knew that the house had burned in the night. 
It was only four miles away, but the lake had frozen 
thinly over the day before, making a sheet of ice through 
which it was imj^ossible to force a boat, while it was 
not considered strong enough to bear the weight of a 
man. But the occasion was desperate, and young Hal- 
stead, accompanied by another man, (Jacob Pardee, I 
think.) put on his skates and started out. They agreed 
to keep a long distance apart, since ice which will bear 
the weight of one may not bear the weight of tw^o, and 
each promised that if one broke in the other should 
not stop nor go near him, but keep skatiug for dear 
life, as the only safety lay in swift motion. The ice 
bent under them like leather, but they went like the 
wind and got across in safety. Half way over the ice 
was covered with ashes and cinders blown from the 
ruins of the burned house, and as he skated Halstead 
saw floating past him a charred leaf of the great family 
Bible, which he had turned at his grandmother's knee. 
The house audits contents were a complete loss, the 
family barely escaping with their lives. Many an heir- 
loom went up in smoke that night, and many a record 
which has never been replaced. The present house 
was built upon the old foundation the following sum- 
mer, very like it in general features, and with a great 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 309 

chimney and fireplaces which have since been removed. 
The next July President James Monroe went through 
the lake, taking the steamboat at Whitehall and arriv- 
ing at Plattsburgh on Saturday, July 27, at noon. The 
steamboat must have been the Phenix^ Capt. Jahaziel 
Sherman, the second steamboat on the lake, built at 
Vergennes in 1815. Her name was prophetic, as she 
was burned about two years after she carried the Presi- 
dent. 

1818. 

TowD Meeting opened agreeable to adjournment at the 
school house in District No. 3 in said town on the 7th day 
of April, 1818. 

1. Voted John Lobdell, Supervisor. 

2. Bouton Lobdell, Town Clerk. 

3. Enos Loveland, Gideon Hammond, George H. An- 
drews, Assessors. 

4. Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

5. Enos Loveland, Joseph Stacey , Overseers of the Poor. 

6. John Lobdell, Gideon Hammond, Timothy Shelden, 
Com. of Highways. 

7. Bouton Lobdell, Diodoras Holcomb, Samuel Cook, 
Jr., Com. of Common Schools. 

8. Alexander Spencer, John Lobdell, John Weston, 
Daniel W. Sturtevant, Timothy Shelden, Enos Loveland, 
Inspectors of Common Schools. 

9. Walter W. Kellogg, Levi Frisbie, Charles Fisher, 
Constables. 

10. Timothy Shelden, Joseph Stacey, George B. Reyn- 
olds, Calvin Angier, Samuel Storrs, Piatt R. Halstead, 
Fence Viewers and Pound Masters. 

11. Jesse Jones, John Sharmau, James W. Call, John 
Ferris, Jr., Amos Culver, Elijah Angier, Jesse Braman, 
Augustus Hill, John Kingsiey, Isaac Knapp, Josepb 
Storrs, Eli Ferris, John Chaudler, Cyrus Richards, Joseph 
Stacey, Jr., Overseers of Highways. 

12. That Fence Viewers and Pojnd Masters have sev- 
enty cents per day. 



310 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

13. To raise double the sum allowed for the support of 
common schools. 

14. To raise oue hundred dollars for the support of the 
poor. 

15. Town Meeting adjourned to the school house in 
Dist. No. Sin said Town on the first Tuesday in April, 1819. 

The "school house in District No. 3" was at North- 
west Bay, and stood on the south side of the bridge, on 
the place where Low Fuller's house now stands. It 
was the largest public building then in town, and was 
used not ouly tor town meeting, but for the Sunday 
services and business meetings of both churches. 

Nothing more tiresome can be conceived than the 
literary style of the descriptions of the highway dis- 
tricts in the town book, but many interesting facts can 
be gleaned from them nevertheless. This year we find 
mention of "Braman's Mill," which seems to have been 
called "Coats' Mill" in 1815, for no reason that I can 
discover. The place is called invariably Braman's 
Mills after this until 1822, when we find "VVadham's 
and Braman's Forge," and shortly afterward Wadham's 
Mills, a name which still endures. 

AVe find also "Braynard's barn" and' "Braynard's 
Forge" as landmarks this year, and "Hatch's wharf," 
the first mention of a wharf in the records, though we 
believe it to have been built some years before this 
time. 

In July of 1818, the bodj^ of General Eichard Mont- 
gomery, who was killed at the attack upon Quebec, on 
the last day of the year 1775, and who was buried near 
the ramparts of that city, ^vas carried from Quebec to 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 311 

New York, aucl given its final burial in St. Paul's 
churchyard. Says Watson, "The remains of Mont- 
gomery were borne through the country, accompanied 
by every exhibition of love and reverence." The fu- 
neral train passed up the lake on the Phemx, draped 
with the trappings of woe and the insignia of the state, 
with flags floating at half mast, as we now see the line 
boat on similar occasions. Forty-three years had 
passed since Montgomery and his army went down the 
lake to Canada, and at that time there was no village 
in Northwest Bay, and no eye save that of deer or wolf, 
glancing out of the thicket, to see the advance of the 
army. A few souls there were at the Raymond settle- 
ment, to be driven away the next year, never to return. 
Now the Champlain valley had changed marvelously, 
with farms and villages, and a pushing, fearless life of 
industry on both land and water. 

This year four Westport men received the appoint- 
ment of Justice of the Peace : Bouton Lobdell, Enos 
Loveland, John Lobdell and Gideon Hammond. Jus- 
tices were not yet elected, but appointed by the Coun- 
cil of Appointment sitting at Albany. 

Isaac Stone came from Cavendish, Yt., and settled 
on the lake road, on Bessboro, on the farm so long 
owned by his son Granville, and which has been only 
recently sold out of the family. On this farm is the 
stone quarry. 

1819. 

Town Meeting opened agreeable to adjournment at the 



312 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

school house in District No. 3 in the Said Town ou the 6th 
day of April, 1819. 

1. Voted JohD Lobdell, Supervisor. 

2. Ebenezer Newell, Town Clerk. 

3. Gideon Hanrimond, Enos Loveland, George H. An- 
drews, Assessors. 

4. Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

5. Enos Loveland, Joseph Stacey, Overseers of the 
Poor. 

6. Joel Burrows, Timothy Shelden, Jesse Braman, 
Com. Highways. 

7. Samuel Cook, Jr., Diodorus Holcomb, Charles B. 
Hatch, Com. of Schools. 

8. Enos Loveland, John Lobdell, Gideon Hammond. 
Alexander Spencer, Elijah Storrs, Joel Burrows, Inspec- 
tors of Schools. 

9. Levi Frisbie, Walter W. Kellogg, Charles Fisher, 
Tillinghast Cole, Constables. 

10. Timothy Shelden, Ira Henderson, Caleb P. Cole. 
Elijah Dunton, Samuel Storrs, Joel Finney, No.'ton Noble, 
Elijah Storrs. Daniel Wright, Joel Burrows, Fence View- 
ers. 

11. Charles Hatch, Pound Master. 

12. Daniel P. Lock, Charles Wood, Elijah Dunton, Til- 
linghast Cole, Charles Hatch, Henry Thatcher, Daniel 
Wright, Joseph Hardy, Samuel Denton, Samuel Storrs, 
John Daniels, 3rd, Johnson Hill, Lyman Smith, John 
Chandler, Harvey Stone, John Shearman, Jr., Overseers 
Highways. 

Voted to raise ten dollars to build a pound thirty feet 
square, six feet high, to be paid to Charles Hatch. Esqr., 
he finding ground to Sett said pound on, with a good door 
and lock. 

To raise double the sum for the use of schools that we 
receive from the state. 

To raise one hundred and fifty dollars for the support 
of the poor. 

That the overseers of the poor be authorized to hire a 
house for the benefit of the poor. 

It will have been observed that the sum raised yearly 
for the support of the poor steadily iu creased, from 
twenty dollars in 1815 to one hundred aud fifty in 1819 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT ^13 

sliowiug a large increase of population. At this time 
each town assumed the entire care of its paupers, the 
first move toward adopting the plan of county support 
of the poor being made in 1818, and the county house 
built in 1833. 

This year Ezra Carter Gross was our Eepresentative 
in Congress. He was the young lawyer associated with 
William Ray in the editorship of the Reveille in 1812, 
and his daughter afterward taught in the Academy here. 

This year the old system of making the fence view- 
ers also pound masters with the duty of keeping stray 
animals in their own barnj'ards until reclaimed by 
their owners, was changed, and one pound master ap- 
■ pointed for the whole town. The pound was to be built 
at Northwest Bay, which shows the relative importance 
of that place at this time. That the village was grow- 
ing rapidly is also shown by the fact that in this year 
the northern part of it was mapped into streets and lots. 

When Charles Hatch came in 1802 he settled just 
outside the limits of the Ananias map, drawn to facili- 
tate the sale of John Halstead's land. Some time af- 
terward he bought the corner lot at the top of the lake 
bill, and there built the first store, which was for a long 
time the only one in the township. His deahngs pros- 
pered, and in seventeen years' time he had become pos- 
sessed of the greater part of the land north of the 
territory of the Ananias map, and seeing that there was 
■A demand for village lots, he employed Diadorus Hol- 
comb, who seems to have added to his medical educa- 
lion a knowledge of surveying, to map out the laud. 



314 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

The map which was drawn has passed through many 
hands, and has had one or two thrilling escapes from 
destruction, but is still preserved entire, and an exact 
copy now hangs in the village Library. The original 
map was drawn with a quill pen on heavy paper, and 
backed with cloth. It is made in two parts, called Map 
No. 1 and Map No. 2, the first extending from Wash- 
ington street to the brook, and the secoad from the 
brook to the north line of the lot upon which stood the 
old Richards House, now burned. k.i the right of the 
map is the following description. 

At the request of Charles Hatch, Esqr., I have surveyed 
or laid out. cornered and numoered, on the west side of 
Lake Champlain, adjoinin_o- North West Bay, in the Town 
of West Port, County of Essex and State of New York, the 
lots of land and streets herein laid down and marked, 
agreeable to Mao Number First and Second. 

The courses of the lots are known by the courses of the 
streets thereon ^vritten. Washini^ton Street, Main Street, 
Pleasant street and North Street are sixty-six feet wide. 
W^ater Street, Charles Street and East Street are thirty- 
three feet wide. Each lot not otherwise described is a 
reyular oblonuf square, being fifty feet in front and rear 
and one hundred feet deep. Those lots which vary are 
marked in feet on the line thus varying. Each lot is cor- 
nered with a red cedar stake. 

Those lots on Map No. 1st east of Main Street are cor- 
nered or numbered on the south west corner. Those lots; 
on Map No. 2nd west of East Street ai'e numbered on th( 
north west corner. Those east of East Street are num^ 
bered on the south east corner. 

Being tifty-eight lots on Map No. 1st, thirty-two on Ma[ 
No. 2nd. amounting to ninety lots in all. Both Maps an 
laid to a scale of eighty feet to an inch. 

Performed August 25th, 1819. by Diodorus Holcomb,) 
Surveyor. 

Here we have four new streets named, Pleasant 

North, Charles and East, and on the map itself we fine 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT :n5 

Mill Street, ruoning from the bridge to the "old stone 
mill," which was perhaps the New Stone Mill that 
year, though Henr}* Holcomb thought that he could 
remember before it was built, and as' he was only three 
years old when the map was drawn, it would be reas- 
onable to date its erection no earlier than 1825. It was 
a grist mill, as the mill stones still hi situ will prove, 
and boats loaded and discharged their freight at the 
wharf below it, the ruins of which can still be seen at 
low water. The roof and chimney of the mill did not 
fall in until the summer of 1900. 

If the mill was not built in 1819, it is plain from the 
name and direction of Mill street that Squire Hatch 
had already planned it. He had also laid out a tier of 
lots between Water street and the lake, which can have 
had no value except as possible places to build wharves. 
Another new street was laid out, named Charles street, 
undoubtedly in honor of Charles Hatch himself, run- 
ning east and west just south of the M. E. church, I 
should think, and up the hill past Mr. Andrew Daniels, 
which was never opened. Another street whose name 
is entirely strange to the present generation was East 
street, which ran along the western bank of the brook 
toward its mouth, turning in at the west of the bridge. 
When the map was drawn, this street gave access to a 
mill which stood on the bank of the brook below the 
' >ridge. 

Pleasant and North are two of our principal streets 
now, one running to the west and the other to the north 
from the bridge. Since the building of the railroad 



S16 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Pleasant street has come to be spoken of as "Depot 
street," but surely it is a pity not to use the old names, 
since they are all such good ones. As a matter of fact, 
I suppose there are hardly ten people in town who 
know the location of Washiuston or of Pleasant street, 
or can tell when they were named, or by whom,— per- 
adventure there may not be five to whom the informa- 
tion to be obtained from this old map will not be en- 
tirely new. 

Judge Hatch (he was appointed Judge of the Court 
of Common Pleas in 1814) seems to have owned all the 
land of this map with the exception of three large lots. 
One of these, lying just south of the bridge, on the east 
side of Main street, is marked "Wm. S. McLoud'sLot," 
and then across it in another hand is written "Porter 
Lot." On North street, where the Richards House 
afterward stood, is "Ira Henderson's Lot," and along 
the brook above the bridge, where most of the mills 
stood at that time, lie "B, Merrick's Lots." This must 
mean that Barnabas Myrick had already bought land 
here. He was at this time a young man of twenty-four. 
He afterward built the large white house on North 
street, with its pillared porch in two stories, looking 
toward the lake, and he owned and operated a saw 
ujill, tannery and ashery at Northwest Bay, as well 
as forges on the Black river and at Wad hams. 

As we have seen, three streets named on these old 
maps are not now in existence, excapt that part of Wa- . 
ter street which extends north from the steamboat !t 
wharf. It is evident that these earliest map makers ' 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT H17 

believed that the future growth of the village would be 
much closer to the water's edge thao was actually 
the case, and sites for wharves were more highly valued 
than has since been justified by the development of 
the town. 

Libert}^ street was not opened until 1836, nor the 
short street which connects it with Washington. The 
street which runs west from the old Douglass wharf, 
now owned by D. F. Payne, was not opened until after 
1825, and the streets north and west from the Marks 
cottage still later. None of these later streets has ever 
received a name, except the one opened in 1889, at the 
same time of the opening of Oklahoma Territory to 
white settlement, which was therefore popularly desig- 
nated as Oklahoma, and is still known by that name. 
A committee of citizens to choose suitable names for 
the streets opened since the making of Hatch's map, 
would do a public service for which future generations 
might well thank them, provided that the names se- 
ll lected were appropriate, pleasing in sound, not too 
common, and, if possible, suggestive of persons or 
^1 events influential in Westport history. 

No map of the village seems to have been drawn from 

I 1819 to 1876, when the large atlas of Essex county was 

j published by O. W. Gray k Son, Phila. The latter 

ii shows the village as it was just before the fire of 1876, 

ind is consequently of the greatest value. 

18S0. 

Town meeting held at the school, house in District No. H, 
.'^pril4. 



318 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Charles Hatch, Supervisor. 

Ebeoezer Newell. Clerk 

John Lobdell, Gideon Elammond. Joseph Stacey, Asses- 
sors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Enos Loveland and Joseph Stacey, Poormasters. 

Joel Burroucrhs. Jesse Bramao, Timothy Sheldon, Com- 
misioners of Highways. 

Diadorus Holcomb, Charles B. Hatch, Piatt R. Halstead, 
Commissioners of Common Schools. 

Leman Bradley, Harry Stone, Joel Burroughs. Inspec- 
tors of Schools. 

Levi Frisbie. Rufus Ashley. Waiter W. Kellogg. Consta- 
bles. 

Joel Burroughs, Jesse Braman, Charles Hatch. James 
Coll, Joseph Stacey. Piatt Sheldon, EnosLoveland, Samuel 
Storrs, Fence Viewers. 

Charles B. Hatch, Pound Master. 

Overseers of Highways. — AppoUos Williams, Piatt Shel- 
don, Isaac Stone, Jesse Mooers. Asa Lyon, Samuel Chan- 
dler, Henry Royce. Francis Hardy. William Storrs, John 
Lobdell, John Chamberlain, Walter W. Kellogg, Enos 
Loveland, Gideon Hammond, Harry Stone, Abel Culver. 

Survey of the Alteration in the road leading from ColTs 
Mills to the Ferry, the Alteration beginning nearly op- 
posite the House now occupied by Daniel Johnson. (Sur- 
veyor's directions) — until it intersects the old road again 
near the top of the hill east of Odle's Ba3^ 

This year a beginDiog was made at recording in the 
town book the earmarks used by the farmers as a 
meaus of identifying their cattle and sheep. The most 
that the farmers of those days could do was to fence 
their cleared and plowed land, while their pastures 
stretched uufenced as far as the forest itself extended. 
Young cattle and sheep were often turned out in the 
spring and left to roam all summer in this common 
pasturage. In the fall the farmer drove in all his stocks 
and in order to separate hia own from his neighbors^ 



I 



I 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 319 

distinguishing marks were necessary. In the west of 
to-dav the cow boys brand their stock, bnt in the east- 
ern colonies "earmarks" made with a sharp knife, were 
used, and it was common to record them in the town 
books. Perhaps the custom was becoming obsolete, 
for only one ear-mark is here recorded, though a large 
space was left at the back of the book. This was "Eli- 
jah Angler's Mark, A Cross of the Left Ear." 

In this year, 1820, there were large additions to both 
churches, and a general revival,followed by years of in- 
creased prosperity. The presiding elder of the Ticou- 
deroga Circuit was then John B. Stratton, and James 
Lovel, preacher. In the history of the M. E. Church, 
prepared by the Rev. J. E. Boweu, to which I am en- 
tirely indebted for facts concerning this church, men- 
tion is made of these names added in 1820 : Sally Fris- 
bie, (daughter of Levi Frisbie,) Mrs. James Mclntyre, 
Joshua, Susan and Kate Smith, and Nathaniel Allen 
and wife, the last two received by letter. In the Bap- 
tist church the preacher was Elder John S. Carter, 
from Addison, Vt., who was the first settled pastor of 
the church. The year before, the Baptist church had 
voted to build a parsonage, and this year a committee 
was appointed to carry on the work, Edward Cole, Dia- 
dorus Holeomb and Enos Loveland. Thus it is prob- 
able that at this time the house was bailt which served 
as the Baptist parsonage until about twenty five years 
ago. It stands on Main street and is now owned bv 
Mrs. Marian Sherman. Both churches still held public 
.service in the school house. 



320 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

The year of 1820 was welcomed by a New Year's Ball 
''at Esquire Newell's," which meaus at the house of 
Ebenezer Newell, who was a Justice of the Peace, and 
who lived on Pleasant street. That it was quite a 
social event is shown by the fact that a number of 
church members were present, their action sternly 
deprecated by the ascetic New England religious sen- 
timent, with its horror of dancing, which was rapidly 
rising with the increase of church influence in the place. 

Settlers were coming in all the time from the New 
England states. In 1820 John Hodgkins came from 
Charleston, N. H., and settled on the Boquet in the 
southeast corner of Lewis, just across the town line. 
His wife was Diantha Prouty, and they had six chil- 
dren, John F., Lavina, Richard M., Edmond O., Lewis 
W., and Samuel. Edmond O. Hodgkins was deacon 
and trustee of the Congregational church at Wadhams 
for years. Three of his sons, Samuel H., Frank, and 
Ezra K., are now prominent business men in West- 
port, Samuel H. Hodgkins being the present supervisor. 

There is a reminder of the social condition of the 
times in the fact that in 1820 Commodore Barron shot 
Commodore Decatur in a duel. Duelling was still sa- 
credly observed among ofBcers of the army and navy, 
and was not unknown among civilians. 
18iil. 

TowD meetios; held in the school house. 
Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 
Ebenezer Newell, Town clerk. 

Tunothy Sheldon, John Lobdell and Calvin Augier, As«^« 
»essors. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 321 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Charles Hatch and Caleb P. Cole, Poor Masters. 

Joel Burrows, Jesse Braman and Charles Fisher, High- 
way Commissioners. 

Enos Loveland, Charles B. Hatch and Ira Henderson, 
School Commissioners. 

Leman Bradley, Piatt R. Halstead and Asa Lyon, School 
Inspectors. 

Levi Frisbie, Walter W. Kellogg, Piatt R. Halstead, Di- 
adorus Holcomb and Rufus Ashley, Constables. 

Fence Viewers. — Joel Burrows, Jesse Braman, Charles 
Hatch, James W. Coll, Joseph Stacy, Piatt Sheldon, Enos 
Loveland and Samuel Storrs. 

Overseers of High ways. -Joseph Ormsby, Timothy Shel- 
don, Crosby McKenzie, Asa Loveland, Caleb P. Cole, 
Asahel Lyon, Luther Angier, Daniel Wright, Norton 
Noble, Lewis Sawyer, Jacob Mathews, John Lobdell, Ab- 
ner Fish, Abraham Nichols, John Chandler, Henry Stone, 
John Pine. 

Charles B. Hatch, Pound Keeper. 

Voted that the Overseers of the Poor be authorized to 
hire a House for their Poor the Ensuing year. 

In the road surveys there is mentioned a road which 
ran '-from Braman 's to Winslow's Mills." Road district 
No. 5 is extended "south on the state road to the south 
line of Halstead 's lot." 

In 1821 our Member of Assembly was Ebenezer 
Douglass of Ticouderoga, who afterward came to West- 
port. Our Representative in Congress was again Ezra 
C. Gross. 

This year we have the first positive information in 
regard to a post office here, though it is not likely thak 
this was its first establishment. In those days of high 
postage and small population, the duties of a postmas- 
ter were by no means arduous. It was very common 
for the country store keeper to recetve the appointmeuf* 
hence there is reason to believe that Charles Hatch 
first held this office. Tradition also suggests the name 



322 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

of Samuel Cook. This paper, found amoug the effects 
of Mr. Peter Ferris, settles the point, for this year at 
least, of the man who carried the mail. 

"I, John Ferris, Jr., of the town of Westport and 
state of New York, do swear that I will faithfully per- 
form all the duties required of me, and abstain from 
everything forbidden by the law in relation to the es- 
tablishment of Post Offices and Post Roads within the 
United States. 

"I do solemnly swear that I will support the Consti- 
tution of the United States. 

Signed John Ferris, Jr. 

Sworn and subscribed before me this j 
day of January, 1821. j 

DiADORUS HOLCOMB, 

Justice of the Peace. 

John Ferris lived at the turn of the road as you go 
down to the ferry at Barber's Point, and I have no 
doubt that he brought the mail on horseback from 
Vergennes, crossing on this ferry. 

March 3, 1821, Piatt Rogers Halstead received the 
appointment of Commissioner of Deeds, and was also 
made Loan Commissioner. 

In 1821 Jason Dunster came to the village at the 
Falls, then called Braman's Mills. The Dunsters come 
of the very best American ancestry, being descended 
directly from that Henr}^ Dunster who came from Eng- 
land to Massachusetts in 1640, and was immediately 
chosen as the first President of Harvard College, then 
in its verj' beginnings. President Dunster was selected 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT S2H 

for the place on account of his great learning and piety, 
and he filled it with credit for twelve years. The fam- 
ily remained in Cambridge for four generations. Jona- 
than, youngest son of President Dunster, was a farmer, 
and his wife's name was Abigail Eliot. Their oldest 
sou, Henry, married Martha Kussell. daughter of Jason 
Kussell, and his youngest son was named Jason. Jason 
married Rebecca Cutter, and to him descended the old 
Dunster homestead in Cambridge, in which he lived for 
eighteen years, moving to Mason, New Hampshire, in 
1769. His youngest son was another Jason, born 1763, 
and he was a soldier in the Revolution, serving a part 
of the time on the Hudson river. His wife was Polly 
Meriam, and he died in 1828, and was buried at Mason. 
The third Jason, oldest son of the second Jason, was 
the one who came to Westport in 1821, a young man of 
twenty-seven. He had served in the war of 1812, as an 
Ensign, being stationed at Portsmouth, N. H. His 
sword is still preserved in his son's family. His first 
wife was Azubah Felt, (of the same family as Abitha 
Felt, wife of Jesse Bramau,) and they were accompa- 
nied to Westport by her father, x4.aron Felt. After the 
death of his first wife, Jason Dunster married Hannah 
Hardy. His daughter Louise married Morris Sher- 
man, and was the mother of Elleryand of Carroll Sher- 
man. His SOD Charles Carroll married Rachel Benson, 
and has three children living, Clara Louise, Elsie, now 
Mrs. Frank Hodgkins, and Mary. 

1832. 

Town meeting "in the school house at North West Bay." 



:V24 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Gideon HammoDd, Supervisor. 

Ebenezer Newell, Town Clerk. 

John LoDdell, Joel Burroughs and Piatt R. Halstead, 
Assessors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Johu Lobdell and Caleb P. Cole, Poor Masters. 

Norton Noble, Charles B. Hatch and Charles Fisher, 
Highway Commissioners. 

Charles B. Hatch, Piatt K. Halstead and Ira Henderson, 
School Commissioners. 

Bouton Lobdell, Asahel Lyon and Diadorus Holcomb, 
School Inspectors. 

Levi Frisbie and Philo Kiugsley, Constables. 

Charles Hatch, Pound Keeper. 

Fence Viewers, — Timothy Sheldon, Tillinghast Cole, 
Harry Stone, Enos Loveland, Daniel Wright and John 
Lobdell. 

Overseers of Highways. — Ralph Walton, Charles Wood, 
James Coll, Jesse More, Caleb P. Cole, Barnabas Myrick, 
Elijah Angier, Alexander Frazier, Moses Felt, Oliver H. 
Barrett, John Daniels, 3rd, John Kiugsley. Johnson Hill, 
Joshua Smith, Gideon Hammond, Harry Stone, Washing- 
ton Lee, John Chamberlain. 

Voted to raise $100 for the support of the poor, $25 to 
repair the "bridge at John Shearman's'' and "double the 
the sum allowed bv the state for the support of common 
schools." 

Survey of a "roadbegiuning at a Hemlock Treestandiug 
on tbe Lake shore near the old Wharf in Chauncey Bar- 
ber's Bay," and running "to the Lake road a few rods 
north of the house now occupied by John Ferris, Jun. 
Also a road beginning at the south wharf of the 'Widow 
Huldah Barber, and intersecting the main road '"opposite 
of the s'd Widow Barber's horse shed." Also aRoad lead- 
ing from "Wadham s and Braman's Forge " ti Braynard's 
and Mitchel's Forge.- 

In October of this year occurred the death and fu- 
neral of General Daniel Wright, the latter conducted 
with military lionors. Only eight years had passed 
since the battle of Plattsburgh, and it still seemed to 
these people but an event of j'esterday. The annual 



HISfORY OF WESTPORT 325 

militia trainiDgs had increased steadily in pomp and 
circumstance, and there is no doubt that this occasion 
was truly an imposing ceremony. Officers and men at- 
tended from the three counties of the Fortieth Brigade, 
and all that horses, uniforms, musket and pistol, sword 
and cockade, muffled drum, crape and mourning ban- 
ners could do, was done, to render the funeral of Gen- 
eral Wright a sight to be remembered. The procession 
came down the hills from the General's farm, into the 
village and up Pleasant street to the cemetery, headed 
by the Brigadier-General of the Fortieth Brigade, who 
was at that time Luman Wadhams. 

General Wadhams may not have moved his family 
from Lewis to Westport at this time, but he must have 
bought property at the Falls before this, as we find ref- 
erence in the road surveys to "Wadham's and Braman's 
Forge," and he came here to live soon after. The name 
of Wadhams is probably the oldest to be found in con- 
nection with Westport history. It dates back to the 
days of King Edward 1., in merry old England. The 
family was an honorable as well as an ancient one, "and 
became allied to many great and noble houses," says 
Prince in his "Worthies of Devon." The most illus- 
trious names in the line are those of Nicholas Wadham 
and Dorothy his wife, who together founded Wadham 
College at Oxford in 1609. The first of the name to 
come to America was John Wadham, who came from 
Somersetshire, England, to Wethersfield, Connecticut, 
in. 1650. For three generations the family sojourned 
in Wethersfield, and it seems to have been in this pe- 



326 I] IS TORY OF WESTPORT 

riod that the letter "s" was added to the name. For 
two geoeratious they were in Goshen, Connecticut, and 
it was in Goshen that Luman Wadhams, the first of the 
nauie in Westport, was born, in 1782. He went to Char- 
lotte, Vt., on the easteru shore of Lake Champlaiu, 
about 1800, and there he married a widow, Lucj Priu- 
dle, born Bostwick. (The lirst of her family to come 
to America was Ebenezer Bostwick, from Cheshire, in 
1668.) In 1809 Luman Wadhams came from Vermont 
to Lewis, and sood after 1822 he was living at the place 
soon afterward called Wadhams Mills. The mill prop- 
erty there remained in the Wadhams famil}^ for over 
forty years. 

General Luman Wadhams and Lucy his wife had five 
children : 

1. Lucy Alvira married Dr. Dan Stiles Wright as his 
second wife. Dr. Wright was practicing medicine 
m Westport before 1831. He does not seem to have 
oeeu at all related to General Daniel Wright, since he was 
rue second son of Eoenezer and Lucretia (VVood) Wright, 
of Shoreham, Vt. His lirst wife's name was Eleutheria, 
and she died in Westport, and was buried in the cemetery 
here. Not long before her death, in 183L the house in 
which they were living, on Pleasant street, (uhe site is 
now occupied by Mr. Henry Richards' house,; was burned, 
and Mrs. Wright was carried out, while her only child, a 
babyboy, was ohrown from an upper window. After his 
second marriage Dr. Wright removed to Whitehall, anu 
was there sent to both branches of the State Legislature. 
Dr. Wright and Lucy his wife had six children, one of 
whom, Eleutheria Farnham VVrigut, married Wiilett Rog- 
ers, son of Eli Rogers of Whallousburgh, and her daugh- 
ter, Kate Rogers, (now Mrs. Edgar G. Worden, Lewistown, 
Montana,) taught scnool in Westport for several years. 

2. Jan« Ann Wadhams married Benjamin Wells of Up- 
per Ja.y, N. Y. 

3. William Luman Wadhams, (universally known as 
'^ Deacon Wadhams,") married Emeline L. Cole, daughter 



I 



1 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 327 

of Samuel and grand-daughter of Edward Cole of North- 
west Bay; also graod-daughter of Diodorus Holcomb, M. 
D. They had thirteen children, of whom four died in in- 
fancy. 

William married Lucinda Skinner. 

Lumau married Elizabeth S. Stay nor, in San Francisco. 
Children, Ida, Edward, Virginia, George, Bertha. 

Lucy Bostwick, married Herbert L. Cady. Children, 
William Lewis, Frank Blish, Frederick Wadhams, Her- 
bert Alden. 

Frances Burchard, married 1st, George D. Davenport, 
2nd, Ebenezer J. Ormsbee, Governor of Vermont. 

Harriet Weeks, married Dr. George T. Stevens, now of 
New York. Children, Frances Virginia, Charles Wad- 
hams, Georgina Wadhams. 

Samuel Dallas married, in Elmira, Georgina Ogden. 
Child, Harry Albion. 

Albion Varette, married in Annapolis, Caroline Hender- 
son. Children, William Henderson, Albion James, Eliza- 
beth Wadhams. 

Frederick Eugene, married Emma, daughter of Dr. E. 
D. Jones of Albany. Child, Elizabeth Jones. 

Emeline Elizabeth, married John E. Burton of Albany. 
Children, Mary Landon, John Wadhams. 

4. Abram E. Wadhams married Sophia Southard, of 
Essex, and resided at Wadhams Mills. Children: Edmund 
Abraham, born 1833, died at Blaine, Wash., 1900; several 
times mayor of the city. Pitt Edgar, born 1836, killed at 
Chancellors viile, Va., May 3, 1863. 

5. Edgar Prindle Wadhams, the only one of the family 
to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, became the first 
Bishop of Ogdeusburgh. 

Few of the Wadhams family seem to have been born 
to obscurity, and that one of them who has most en- 
gaged public attention is perhaps Bishop W^adhams. 
This has come partly from essential and dominant 
characteristics of the man himself, and partly from the 
fact of liis change of faith from Protestantism to thai 
form of belief maintained by Roman Catholics. As a 
rule, in our country, Catholics are born and not made, 



328 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

and this is no truer anywhere than in the town of 
which this is a history. The writer cannot recall an- 
other single instance of such a change in belief. On 
this account, if for no other reason, great interest has 
always been manifested in this man. I do not know 
that there is any complete biography of his life, but 
there is an interesting little book called "Reminiscences 
of Bishop Wadhams" written by Father Walworth of 
Albany, who made the change from the Protestant 
Episcopal to the Rom^m Catholic church at nearly the 
same time as did Wadhams. In this book we find that 
Wadhams was born in Lewis in 1817 ; entered Middle- 
bury College in 1834 and graduated with honors in 1838, 
Though brought up a Presbyterian, he became an Epis- 
copalian while in Middlebury, of so earnest and de- 
voted a type that he was accustomed to lift his hat 
upon passing the church. There was no settled rector 
and no regular service, and Wadhams and a friend 
of his often conducted the service themselves, one 
playing the organ while the other read the service. 
In 1843 Wadhams received deacon*s order in 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was sta- 
tioned in Essex county, his principal station being in 
Ticonderoga, with occasional services in Port Henry 
and Wadhams Mills. It was during this period of his 
diaconate that the remarkable attempt to found a mon- 
astery at Wadhams Mills was made. It sounds wild 
uid romantic enough, but nothing could show more 
clearly that his final entrance into the Catholic church 
was but a natural sequence to the whole bent of his 



I 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 329 

niiud from his first entrance into the Episcopal fold. 

In Walworth's book is given a picture of "the mon- 
aster}^ at Wadhams Mills/' which is none other than the 
old Wadhams house in the village, next to Payne's 
store, now occupied by Mrs. Joel Whitney. The house 
is given that name because during the winter of 1844-5 
Wadhams and Walworth lived there, keeping up as far 
as possible the rules and discipline of a monastic life. 
Mrs. Wadhams, then a widow, lived in the house also, 
but the young men occupied three rooms by themselves 
and lived their own life, doing their own cooking, and 
fasting according to rules adopted by them. Walworth 
says : "Wadhams' favorite idea was to educate boys 
of the neighborhood, training them specially to a relig- 
ious life which should serve finall}^ to stock our con- 
vent with good monks. A handful of boys who gath- 
ered with other children on Sundays in the school- 
house tor catechism seemed to afford a nucleus which 
might afterward develop into a novitiate. We actually 
laid the foundations and built up the sides of a convent 
building. It was nothing, indeed, but a log-house and 
never received a roof, for the winter was intensely cold, 
and the ensuing spring opened with events which sent 
me into the Catholic church and to Europe, leaving 
uotliing of the convent but roofless logs and a commu- 
nity of one. But I mistake ; Wadhams had a Cana- 
<lian pony which, in honor of pious service to be there- 
after rendered, we named Be)u, and a cow which for 
similar reasons we named Bonte. Our log-house clois- 
ter was built on a lovely- spot under the shelter of a hill 



330 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

wliich bounded a farai inherited by Wadhams from his 
father. The farm contained a fine stretch of woodland 
on the south, while the greater part from east to west 
was open and cultivated field, the half of which, high 
and terraced, looked down upon a lower meadow land 
which extended on a perfect level to a fine stream bor- 
deriuLT the farm (^n the east. Beyond the brook and 
along its edge ran the road from Wadhams Mills to 
Lewis. There was much debate before we fixed on the 
site of our convent. A fine barn stood already built on 
the natural terrace on the south side, while under the 
terrace at the north end was a magnificent spring of 
the purest water. Where should the convent be, near 
the barn or near the spring? Every present convenience 
lay on the side of the barn, and horse and cow were 
actual possessions. But our hopes looked brightly for 
the future. What would a great community of hooded 
cenobites do without a holy well near by ? So we laid 
the foundations of the future pile on the edge of the 
terrace just above the spring. W^e did not consult 
either Beni or Bonte." 

Walworth says later: "St. Mary's Monastery in the 
North Woods had turned out to be a vision. Tliat 
vision had vanished, and in its place was left nothing 
but a roofless log house on the Wadhams farm." This 
njeans that both the young men had decided that they 
could not find what they wanted in the Episcopal 
Churcli, and therefore sought further in the Roman 
Catholic Church. Walworth "went over" in 1845, and 
immediately brought all his powers of persuasion to 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT .V.Vi 

bear upon his friend. He writes from a convent at St. 
Trond, Belgium, February 17th, 1846, "Ah! if the 
quondam abbot of Wadhams Mills were only here, 
where the discipline of the religious life is found in all 
its wisdom, vigor, attractiveness, he would weep and 
laugh by turns with me at our little 'monkery' among 
the hills of Essex." 

Before the year was out Edgar Wadhams had also 
joined the Roman Catholic Church, beirg received by 
the Sulpicians of St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore. 
He was ordained a priest at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, 
Albany, in 1850, and resided in that city until he be- 
came Bishop of Ogdensburgh in 1872. He died in 1891. 

It will be remembered that the time at which Edgar 

Wadhams made the momentousjchange from one faith 

to another was also the period of the Oxford movement 

in England, when the hearts of men were so stirred by 

the questions of the divine authority of the church, the 

validity of the sacraments and of priest's orders, and 

many other things. It was at this time that John 

Henry Newman changed his allegiance from the Church 

of England to that of Rome, and so distinguished an 

example may well have had its influence upon the miiid 

of Wadhams, as it had upon that of many others, both 

in England and in America. The hymn Lux Benigna, 

which is such a favorite with both Protestants and 

Catholics, was written b}^ Newman at the time of his 

mental struggle in regard to his duty. 

''Lead, kindly light, amid the encircllDg gloom, 
Lead tbou me oo ; 



332 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

The night is dark, and I am far from home. 

Lead thou me ou; 
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene; one step enough for me. 

To Newman the one step amid the encircling gloom 
seemed that into the bosom of the Catholic Church, and 
thus it also seemed to Wadhams. 

This sketch has carried us far beyond our chronolog- 
ical order, but it is believed that it will be more satis- 
factory than presenting the successive incidents in the 
dates at which they occurred. 

In the summer of 1822 Major McNeil, who had been 
on the staff of General Wright in the war of 1812, came 
to Westport, and lived on Pleasant street. His wife, 
Hannah, (a sister of Asahei Havens,) presented a letter 
of recommendation to the Baptist church in September, 
and was received into membership. Four years after- 
ward the church gave her a similar letter, "to the 
church at Peru," upon the removal of the family from 
Westport. 

1823, 

Town Meeting held at the school house at N. W. Bay. 

Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 

Samuel Cook, Jun., Town Clerk. ^ ^ ^ . ■ . , 

Caleb P. Cole, Enos Loveland and Calvin Angier, As- 
sessors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Caleb P. Cole and Joseph Stacy, Poor Masters. 

Piatt Sheldon, George B. Reynolds and Jesse Braman, 
Highway Commissioners. 

Charles B. Hatch, Ira Henderson and Piatt K. Halsteaa, 

Sciiool Commissioners. -, ^r-i,. o ^/T.,T^.^l 

John Chandler, Caleb C. Barnes and William S. McLeod. 

School Inspectors. 



HISTORY OF WSETPORT 333 

Philo Kincrsley, Levi Frisbie and Samuel ChiiDdler, Con- 
stables. 

Fence Viewers. — Piatt Slaeldon, Asa Loveland, Abner 
Fish and Joseph us Merriam. 

Charles Hatch, Pound Keeper. 

Overseers of Hi<^hways. — Joseph Ormsbee, Timothy 
Sheldon, Samuel Coll, Tillint^hast Cole, Asahel Lyon, Jo- 
sephus Merriam, George Sturtevant, Amos Lock, Samuel 
Denton, Elijah Sherman, Samuel Storrs, Abner Pish, Wil- 
liamx Denton, Gideon Hammocd, Harry Stone, Peter Tar- 
bell. 

There is no year more memorable in the history of 
Westport than this, which saw the completion of the 
Champlain canal. It was begun June 10, 1818, and 
finished to Waterford, Nov. 28, 1822, so that it was pos- 
sible for boats to pass from the Hudson to Lake Cham- 
plain before winter. Thus was this long portage, which 
had had such power over the designs of men since 
boats floated on lake or river, conquered and annulled, 
and the Champlain valley stretched out to the very sea- 
board. The canal is sixty-four miles long, and follows 
the route which Burgoyae took at the advice of Skene, 
to the utter undoing of his army and himself. 

Now opened a new era of commerce and immigration. 
For the fiist time merchandise could be brought from 
the metropolis directly to our wharves, and travelers 
who ventured into the wide, wide world were not nec- 
essarily cut off from home and kindred by barriers 
which required more than ordinary resolution to over- 
come. Naturally, a rapid increase of immigration took 
place, and one of the first additions was the family of 
Sewall Cutting. 

The first American ancestor of this Cutting family 



334 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

was Kicbarcl, who came from Ipswich, Eugland, to Bos- 
toD, Mass., in 1834. The line is traced through three 
Zechariahs to Jonas, who served in the Eevolution as 
})rivate and corporal in a New Hampshire regiment. 
His son Jonas, of Weathersfield, Vt, Colonel of the 
2.5th U. S. Infantry in the war of 1812, was the father 
of Sewall, who was born at Berlin, Mass., Aug. 16, 1786, 
and died at Westport, April 21, 1855. He married at 
AVindsor, Vt., Aug. 3, 1806, Mary, daughter of William 
and Mary (Newell) Hunter, and sister of Mrs. Asa 
Aikens and of William Guy Hunter. They moved from 
Windsor to New York city in 1821, and in 1823, at- 
tracted by the new possibilities of life on Lake Cham- 
plain, the position of which as a highway from Canada 
was much talked of at the opening of the canal, moved 
to Westport. Dr. Sewall Sylvester Cutting, son of 
Sewall, has left an account of the journey which gives 
an interesting sketch of the mode of travel at that time, 
"We left New York about November first, ascending 
the Hudson on a sloop bound for Troy. My father's 
merchandise was here transferred to two canal boats, 
and on one of these boats my oldest brother, William, 
and myself took passage for Whitehall, my father and 
mother and the younger children going thither by 
stage. At Whitehall we took the sloop Saratoga, and 
sailing at 8 P. M., with a strong south wind, reached our 
destination at Westport, Nov. 13, 1823, at two o'clock 
in the morning. Here my father opened a store, and 
having had the misfortune to lose the building which 
lie had previously engaged, he was obliged, in order to 



I 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 335 

get tlie only unoccupied store in the village, to take 
with it, and keep, a hotel of which it was a part. Now 
once more I had an opportunity to attend school — the 
district school of the village —and I am bound to say 
it was a good school though certainly it would now be 
regarded as exceedingly primitive." Dr. Cutting's 
manuscript continues with an account of his school days 
at the boarding school of Miss Hatch, at Elizabeth- 
town, the next j'ear. He himself taught district school 
in Westport in after days. He obtained his further ed- 
ucation at Waterville College and at the University of 
Vermont, receiving his degree of Doctor of Divinity 
from the latter institution in 1859. He entered the 
Baptist ministry, preaching about ten years, and then 
devoted himself to literary work. He was editor of 
the I^eiv York Recorder, of the Watchman and Reflector 
of Boston, and of the Quarterly Christian Review. He 
was made Professor of Rhetoric and History in the Uni- 
veisity of Rochester in 1855. Dr. Cutting's collected 
writings, both prose and poetry, would make a valuable 
book. His long poem on ''Lake Champlain," recited 
before the alumni of his class in Burlington, June 26, 
1877, has both strength and grace, and the tender tribute 
to the little town where his mother lies buried is very 
touching. What a pity that he did not write a history 
of the place. He had the true antiquarian zeal and the 
exhaustless interest which turns the real into the ideal. 
One of his contributions to local history was "The 
Genesis of the Buckboard,"' so often quoted. 

Dr. Cutting's first wife was Evelina Charlotte, daugh- 



336 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ter of Gardner Stow, tlien of Keeseville, afterward of 
Troy, and AttorDey-General of the State by appoint- 
ment' of Gov. Seymour. The issue of this marriage was 
Gardner Stow Cutting, who graduated at Eochester in 
1858, and studied law in the office of his grandfather 
in Troy. Dr. Cutting's second wife was Elizabeth, 
widow of Thomas Waterman, and daughter of Hugh 
H. Brown, who was grandson of Gov. Elisha Brown of 
Ehode Ishmd. One son by this marriage, Mr. Church- 
ill Hunter Cutting, has for a number of years spent his 
summers at Westport with his family. 

To return to the elder Sewall Cutting, stepping off 
the sloop Saratoga in Northwest Bay that dark Novem- 
ber morning. The family whom he brought with him , 
became important parts of the community life as they 
grew up. All were C(mnected with the Baptist church ! 
in its most prosperous days, and played leading parts ■ 
in its history. Mr. and Mrs. Sewall Cutting brought i 
letters from^a Baptist church in New York when they 
came. Most of the Cuttings were singers, and for years 
the family formed a lar^e part of the choir. People fa- 
miliar with the workings of a large and active coun- 
try church will recognize the fact that leadership in the- 
choir brought with it social leadership as well. Williamn 
J. and Franklin H. Catting (sons of Sewall) were mi 
business together in Westport for years. William J. j 
Cutting built the large brick house on the hill at the, 
head of Liberty street, with the porch suggestive of the ; 
Partlienon at Athens, which shows above the village 
from the lake. His daughters were Mary, now Mrs. 






HISTORY OF WESTFORT 337 

F. H. Page, Helen, now Mrs. Kingsland of Burlington, 
and Lucy, now Mrs. Jacob Hinds of Vergennes. His 
wife was Minerva Holcomb, daughter of Dr. Diodorus. 

Franklin H. Cutting lived in the Hatch house, since 
owned by F. H. Page and G. C. Spencer. He married 
Ann H. Tiffany, at Southbridge, Mass., in 1840. Other 
sons of Sewall Cutting were Wallace and Dan. 

Sewall Cutting the elder married again after the 
death of his first wife a Miss Burchard, and her children 
were Lucy and John Tyler Cutting. The latter after- 
ward went to California, and became a successful mer- 
chant in San Francisco. He entered the army, served 
throughout the Civil war, and was for nine years con- 
nected with the National Guard of California as lieu- 
tenant, major, colonel and brigadier-General. He also 
went to the Fifty-second Congress as member from 
California. 

Up to this time there had been but one post-office in 
the town, and that at Northwest Bay, but now the vil- 
lage at the falls on the Boquet had reached the size and 
importance which demanded, and received, a post-office 
of its own. When its official title came to be decided, 
the name of Wadham's Mills was chosen, after the name 
of the Qjill-owner, who had come into the place the 
previous year. The document which establishes this 
postoffice, appointing Gen. Luman Wadhams as the first 
postmaster, is dated February 25, 1823, and is now in 
the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. E. J. Orms- 
bee, of Brandon, Vt. 



338 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

1824. 

Town MeetiDi^ held in the School house. 

Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 

Samuel Cook, Jun.. Town Clerk. 

Enos Loveland, Calvin Angler, Piatt R. Halstead, As- 
sessors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Caleb P. Cole and John Lobdell, Overseers of the Poor. 

Piatt Sheldon, Geor^^e B. Reynolds and Jesse Braman, 
Hitjfhwav Commissioners. 

Piatt R. Halstead, David B. McNeil and Charles B. 
Hatch. School Commissioners. 

Diadorus Holcomb, AsahelLyou and William S. McLeod, 
School Inspectors. 

Levi Frisbie, Philo KiniJ-sley and John Smith, Jr., Con- 
stables. 

John Hatch Low, Pound Master. 

Fence Viewers. — Piatt Sheldon, Asa Loveland, Abner 
Fish, Joseph us Merriam. 

Overseers of Hi^^^hways. — Ralph Walton, Charles Wood, 
James W. Coll, Willard Frisbie, Diadorus Holcomb, Eb(- 
nezer Scischo, Elijih Williams, John Whitnev, Samuel 
Denton, Gideon Hammond, Henry Stone, John Pine, Jacob 
Matthews, Chester Taylor. 

In the road surveys we find two "private roads" laid 
ont. One ran from "the shore of Lake Champlain to 
the road which leads to Maria Coats' ore bed lot." It 
began "at a stake standing near the ore bed wharf," 
and ended at a "'stake and stones standing twenty-five 
links north of the division line between Piatt Rogers' 
ore bed patent, and Lot No. 100 in the Iron ore tract." 
The other seems to join this one, and mentions "the 
house in wliich Eleazer H. Banney now lives," and 
^'the road leading from Abijah Cheaver's ore bed to his 
wharf." 

Another survey was of "a road leading from Fisher's 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT 339 

Mills by A. Dunton's and the Bartlett settlement to 
the town of Moriah." 

At this time the only public building in the village 
was the school house which stood on Main street, on 
the south side of the bridge. Its threshold must have 
been well worn, for it was crossed by the bare feet 
of the children five days and a half out of every week, 
by the heavy cowhide boots of the men for town meet- 
ings, general elections and district school meetings, 
and every Sunday felt the; tread of men, women and 
children, attending divine service at two long sessions, 
morning and afternoon. It will be a mistake for the 
reader to allow a feeling of pity to rise in his breast for 
the people subjected to so much ecclesiastical labor. It 
was the one relaxation of a hard working, thoughtful, 
self-denying population, starved as to mind and soul 
on remote farms, in many cases, through the week, and 
looking hungrily forward to the opportunity of sitting 
on a rough board seat for an hour, listening to a ser- 
mon wdiich gave positive answer to every question 
then asked by the mind of man. Do not, of all things, 
pity the women, for then came their one chance to ex- 
change notes on important subjects with their neigh- 
bors during the intermission between services, while 
the lunches were being eaten. Even those who lived 
in the village often brought lunch with them, in order 
to enjoy the company of the noon hour. And so we 
understand when we are told that "everybody w^ent to 
meeting then," whether the preacher was the settled 
minister of the Baptists, coming out of the parsonage 



340 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

a little way down the street, the Methodist circuit rider, 
or Father Comstock with his Congregational doctrines, 
riding in on horseback from the house of some friend 
where he had been as welcome as a Bible and a daily 
newspaper rolled into one. 

But what about the children ? Rough board seats 
and sermons are poor support for growing bones. They 
were sometimes allowed to play outside, roaming over 
the fields and down to the lake shore, and making high 
holiday. Any one who knows boys can imagine sun- 
dry drawbacks to this plan, connected perhaps with 
stray cats and apple orchards, and it soon became evi- 
dent that something must be done. Then it was that 
the plan originated of a Sunday school, and the person 
who first put it in operation in Westport was one Sam- 
uel Cook, who had joined the Baptist church in 1816, 
The Baptists formed the leading denomination at that 
time, and for some years after, and consequently the 
first Sunday school was a Baptist one. Mr. Cook's 
services seem to have been entirely self-offered, which 
makes it all the more creditable to him, and we are told 
that the teaching and management fell upon him and 
his family. The Cooks seem to have gone awa}' in 
1828, as in that year Relief, Eunice and Harriet Cook 
received letters of dismission. But the Sunday school 
thus begun was never abandoned. The church in 1826 
took a formal vote, assuming the responsibility of the 
work, and in 1830 elected three superintendents, Gid- 
eon Hammond, John Chandler and John Pine. 

This year, or not long before it, Frederick T. Howard 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 341 

came from YermoDt with his family, and settled on the 
back road, on the place so long occupied by his son 
Frederick B. Howard. Other sons were Mansfield, who 
bought the Gideon Hammond place, where his son 
Rush now lives : Dorr, who built the large brick house 
on the road to Wadhams, now occupied by his . widow ; 
Orrin, who built the white house near the railroad 
crossing known so many years as "Howard's;" and 
Hosea, who lived on the middle road, where his son 
Fred now lives. 

18^5. 

Town meetin,£^ held in the school house at N. W. Bay. 

Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 

Samuel Cook, Jun., Town Clerk. 

Euos Lovelaud, Charles Hatch and John Lobdell, As- 
sessors. 

Enos Loveland and John Lobdell, Poor Masters. 

Charles Fisher, Caleb P. Cole and Samuel Storrs, High- 
way Commissioners. 

Charles B. Hatch, Piatt R. Halstead and Diadorus Hol- 
comb, School Commissioners. 

Levi Frisbie, Philo Kingsley and Jason Dunster, Con- 
stables. 

Piatt Sheldon, Asa Loveland and Abner Pish, Fence 
Viewers. 

John H. Low, Pound Master. 

Overseers of Hit^hways. — Joshua R. Harris, Oschar 
Wood, Crosbie McKenzie, Hezekiah Barber, Caleb P. Cole. 
Piatt R. Halstead, Newton Haze, Calvin An trier, Willard 
Church, Elijah Storrs, Joel Finney, John Daniels, 3rd, 
John Kintjsiey, Vine T. Bingham, Enos Loveland, Gideon 
Hammond, John Nicholds, Frederick Howard, Jacob 
Mathews, Chester Taylor. 

In the road surveys we find the first mention of the 
road which we should now say led from Payne's wharf 
to the Fair grounds, but as neither one of these termini 



342 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

was existent in 1825, it is described as "beginning at 
the north east corner of a piece of land lately purchased 
by Barnabas Myrick and Ira Henderson of Bouton Lob- 
dell," and running ''to the center of the road near Dia- 
dorus Holcomb's." There was also a road laid out 
"leading from Northwest Bay to Whal m's Mill." 

In this year John Quincy Adams was inaugurated, 
the Erie canal was opened, and Lafayette laid the cor- 
ner stone of the university building in Burlington, Yt. 
Another thing remembered in the Champlain valley is 
that this was a remarkably early spring, the ice being 
out of the lake on the eighteenth of March. 

At about this timt) were built two of the large brick 
houses in the village. Judge Hatch built on Main 
street, just north of the present Library lawn, the 
house now owned by Mr. Daniel F. Payne, and in the 
northern part of the village, on the lake shore, the 
house now owned by Mr. Frank Allen was built by 
Ebenezer Douglass. Both are of brick made in West- 
port brickyards, I am told, and both have the massive 
chimneys with deep fire-places on two floors, which 
were still considered necessary in an elegant house, 
notwithstanding the increasing use of stoves. These 
great chimneys, containing many tons of brick, were 
built before work was begun on the outside of the house, 
whether it was to be of wood or brick, and the masons 
who laid them must needs be skilled workmen. 

The Douglass house was begun the year before, and 
finished this summer, but Ebenezer Douglass did not 
come until 1825, his business here being superintended 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 343 

by bis oldest son, Thomas, a young mah not long 
married to Joanna Winans. The Douglasses came 
originally from Connecticut, but Ebenezer Douglass had 
been in Ticonderoga before 1812, as is shown by the 
fact that he was supervisor of Ticonderoga in that year, 
holding the oflSce until 1814. He was again elected in 
1816, and again in 1824, 1825 and 1826. Then he re- 
moved to Westport, remaining about twenty years. He 
had been one of the leading merchants of Ticonderoga, 
in partnership with Judge Isaac Kellogg until after 
the war of 1812, and then with Joseph Weed in the 
Upper Village. In Westport his business partner was 
his son William, and firm name E. & W. Douglass. 
They built the northern wharf, and the brick store 
above it, owned boats, made potash, and carried on 
extensive dealings in lumber. 

Ebeuezer Douo-lass had a lar^^e family of children. His 
second sod, William, married a Miss Arthur of Ticonde- 
roo-a, and was orrandfather to Miss Ada G. Doucriass. His 
dauu^hter Hannah married Dr. Abiathar Pollard, Tor many 
years our leading physician. Other children of Ebenezer 
Douglass were Mary, Lemuel, John, Prentice, and Be- 
najah, afterward supervisor of the town. 

That the village at Northwest Bay was growing in 
importance is shown by all these things. Lumber from 
the forests and iron from the forges on the rivers came 
in to our wharves, and was shipped on canal boats and 
schooners, while merchandise from the south, Albany- 
or New York, and ore from the Moriah mines was un- 
loaded. Barnabas Myrick built a forge at the Falls- 
this year, and the next he and Luman Wadhams built 



344 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

their grist inill there, makiDg the place one of active 
prosperity. 

This year the schooner Troy was lost with all 
on board, her master, Jacob Halstead, a young man of 
twent^^-five, his youDg brother, George, thirteen years 
old, Jacob Pardee, their step-brother, and two others 
whose names I never heard. The schooner went on her 
first trip for ore to Port Henry, one day in November, 
and was returning loaded, when she met a gale in which 
she foundered, somewhere above Barber's Point. It is 
thought that the ore was not properly secured from 
.shifting in the hold, and when the schooner careened 
in the gale, the ore shifted and made it impossible for 
her to be righted. Not oue, master or crew, ever came 
back alive, and from this tragedy arose the story which 
Henry Holcomb loved to tell, and which I have always 
heard in my own family, of the mother and sisters sit- 
ting at home in the Halstead house, listening through 
the storm for the sound of home-coming footsteps as 
the night wore on. Suddenly they heard the boys on 
the doorsteps, stamping off the snow in the entry as 
they were wont to do before com'ng in. The women 
sprang to the door and opened it, stepped to the outer 
door and looked down upon the light carpet of untrod- 
den snow which lay before it, and then crept trembling 
back to the fireside, knowing that son and brothers 
would never sit with them again within its light. The 
father stayed on the wharf all night, and searching par- 
ties went along the shore all the next day, and in the 
afternoon, wi-eckage which told the tale was picked up 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 345 

in Coil's bay. My grandmother was a girl of sixteen 
at the time, and the midnight watch, and the warning 
of those unearthly footsteps, were things which she al- 
ways grew pale to remember. This is the only ghost 
story I have ever known told and believed among our 
townspeople, and I never suspected that it was known 
outside my own family until the old Halstead house, 
then the middle portion of the Westport Inn, was torn 
down in 1898, and some of the older people standing by 
to see it done, recalled the story and told it exactly as 
my mother first told it to me. 

Settlers were continually coming in through all these 
years, and in 1825 Leonard Taylor came from New 
Hampshire and settled near Brainard's Forge. This 
part of the town was largely peopled from New Hamp- 
sliire, as George and Orrin Skinner, who had come 
s(^me time before this, the Pierces and the Hodgkinses, 
all came from that state. 

Oliver Boutwell also came from New Hampshire in 
this year, and settled near Wadham's Mills. He had a 
large family of children, one of whom, Lucinda, born 
in New Hampshire in 1820, married first Kandall Stone, 
and after his death became the second wife of Cyrenus 
K. Payne. Her children were Edna Stone, afterward 
Mrs. Daniel Carey and Lucinda and Cornelia Payne, 
the former now Mrs. John HofTnagle, of this place. 

Town Meeting held iu the school house at North West 
i)av. 



340 HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 

Charles Hatch. Supervisor. i 

Samuel Cook. Jun., Town Clerk. 

Diadorus Holoomb, Gideon Hammoud, Jesse Braman, 
Assessors. 

Levi Frisbie. Collector. i 

Enos Loveland and John LobdelL Poor Masters. 

Baruabas Myrick. John Kingsley. Elijah Storrs, High- 
way Commissioners. 

Diadorus Holcomb. Ira Heudersou, AsahelLyou. School 

Commissioners. _, r^ tt i 

Diadorus S. Holcomb. Charles B. Hatch, Piatt R. Hal- 
stead, School Inspectors. 

Levi Frisbie, Philo Kingsley, Paulious Finney, Consta- 

Enos Loveland. Gideon Hammond. John Lobdell, Fence 
Viewers. 

Charles B. Hatch, Pound Master. 

Overseers of Highways.— Abial Mitchell. Piatt Sheldon, 
■Vlexander Spencer. Cvrus Richards. Ebenezer Pulsiver, 
Diadorus Holcomb. Elijah Angier, George \V. Sturtevant, 
Moses Felt, Samuel Denton, Samuel A. Wightman, John 
Lobdell, Johuson Hill, Nathau Wallace. Gideon Hammondj 
John F. Alexander. Philander Persons, SethLewis. Jonas 
Walker. Joseph Farnum. 

A new road leading "from General Wadhams to AVil-l 
lard Hartwell's."' Another road begins "on the east- 
side of Black river,'' and we find mention of "a road 
running from Southwell's Forge southerly towards^ 
Steel's Saw Mill," and the "old road leading fro 
Haasz's Forge easterly to N. W. Bay." 

The mention of these forges reminds us that the iron 
business was now becoming more and more important! 
''Haasz's Forge" was at "the Kingdom," in Elizabeth-i 
town, high up on the Black river, and Southwell's was 
lower down near the place, I believe, where the turn-i 
pike now crosses the river. 

This year road district No. 19 is formed, to "begiii 



inSrORT OF WESTPORT 347 

at William P. Merriam's, run north by Walker and 
Garfield's Mill, and east to the town line by Darius 
Merriam's." This would seem as though Darius 
Merriam had before this moved from where he first 
settled, on the western slope of Coon mountain, proba- 
bly not long after the war of 1812, to the place where 
he built his house upon the river bank. The Merriams 
c;ime originally from Massachusetts, but Darius Mer- 
riam came to Westport from Essex, and his wife, 
Euseba Potter, came from Swanton, Yt. His children 
were William Potter, Lovisa, PhiletuS Darius, Enos, 
Adney, Delia, Sarah and John. They seem all to have 
gone west, sooner or later, except William and Philetus 
who carried on an extensive lumber and iron business 
for many years under the firm name of W. P. & P. D. 
Merriam. William married Caroline Barnard and had 
two sons and two daughters. He built the cottage 
on the river bank at Merriam's Forge, still owned by 
his daughter, Mrs. Whitney. Philetus Merriam lived 
on the other side of the river, not far from the town 
line, but went west before his death. 

I do not know the exact connection between the fam- 
ily of Darius Merriam and that of William B. Merriam, 
(commonly known as Deacon Merriam,) whose name 
also occurs in this year's records as a resident of West- 
}>ort. He removed to Essex in 1854. His wife's name 
was Rebecca Cook Whitney, and it was his son. Gen. 
William L. Merriam, who carried on the iron works in 
Lewis K daughter of Gen. Merriam married James 
W. Steele of Lewis, and her daughter married D. F. 



I 



:M^ history of WFSTFORT 

Paj'ue of Watlbams Mills. Col. John L. Merriam, sou 
of Gen. Merriam, married Maliala, daughter of Joseph 
K. DeLano, and after her death ia 1857 he removed 
to St. Paul, Mimi., represented his adopted state in 
Congress, and was Speaker of the House in 1870. His 
son, the Hon. William Kush Merriam, born in 1849 at 
\\ adhams Mills, has served two terms as Governor of 
Minnesota, has represented his state in Congress, and 
is now Director of the Census, appointment of Presi- 
dent McKinley. 

In May of 1826 Levi Pierce came from New Hamp- 
shire, and he and his children settled on farms near 
the north line, in Lewis, Essex and Westport. His 
sons were Levi, Jr., Samuel, William, Charles, Curtis, 

and Harvey, and his daughters Mary, Maria and Bet- 
sey. The latter married Captain Samuel Anderson, one 

of the lake captains, and lived on the lake shore farm 

now owned by Mr. Head of Boston. Their daughter 

Amanda married William Williams. Levi Pierce, Jr., 

was the father of Wallace, and Samuel of Martin Pierce. 

Harvey Pierce came to Westport as a clerk in Hatch's > 

store, afterward buying an interest in the business, and I 

later was in partnership with Franklin Cutting. He 

married as his second wife Margaret Augier, and their 

children were Sarah, who died when a young girl ; 

Frank, who married May Wyman of Crown Point, and 

has three childreu, Howard, Eloise, and Beatrice ; and 

Charles, who is married and has one child. Frank and 

Charles Pierce are now partners in business in Iowa. 

May 3, 1826, Barnabas Myrick and Gen. Wadhams: 



HhSTORY OF WESTPORT 349 

I built a large grist mill at Wadhams, the finest yet seen 
ill town. Its brick walls still form a part of the 
present mill. 

18^7. 

TowQ Meeting held Iq the school house at North West 
]>ay. 

Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 

Samuel Cook, Jun., Town Clerk. 

Diadorus Holcomb, Jesse Braman and Alexander Spen- 
cer. Assessors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

.John Lobdell and Enos Loveland, Poor Masters. 

.John Kingsley, Elijah Newell, Ephraim Stiles, Highway 
, Commissioners. 

|| William Frisbie, Timothy Sheldon, Levi Frisbie, Calvin 
■'■ Wiiley, Constables. 

Asahel Lvon, Diadorus Holcomb. Ira Henderson. School 
Commissioners. 

Jason Dunster, Elisha Garfield. Diadorus S. Holcomb. 
Scliool Inspectors. 

Caleb P. Cole, John Lobdell and Calvin Angier. Fence 
Viewers. 

Elijah Newell, Pound Master. 

Overseers of Highways. — Aoial Mitchell, Piatt Sheldon, 
I'oter Tarbell, Cyrus Richards, Caleb P. Cole. Asahel 
F.von, Luther Angler, Willard Church. Moses Felt, Joel 
l-'inney, John Daniels. 3rd, John Lobdell, Harvey Smith, 
xVbram Nichols, Willard Carpenter, Harry Stone, Wash- 
V ington Lee, Eli Ferris, Myron Cole, James Marshall, War- 
' ren Harper. 

•'My rick's forge and shop"' are mentioned in the de- 
scriptions of the road districts. 

This year a new school district was formed, and "the 

^ ' brick school house" was built on the road opened in 

1825, running from the Douglass wharf westward until 

it joins Pleasant street. For my own convenience I 

intend to call this street "Douglass street" iu future, 



SM HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

anei so save the circuinloeutiou of a tedious description. 
Doubtless tlie bouuilary between the two districts w'as 
the bridf^e across Mill brook. This brick school house 
came afterward to be used for the class meet- 
ings and preaching services of the M. E. church. Mr. 
S. Wheaton Cole wrote me in 1899 : "I well remember 
the old brick school house in the north of the village, 
where I began learning my A. B. C's seventy-two years 
ago. The next year I began business, picking winter- 
green berries in the hemlock forests north of the town, 
and exchanging them for candy with Edwin and Charles 
Hatch. My father was killed in September of 1828, 
and the next year I went to live with my uncles, Caleb 
and Paul Cole, where I remained twelve years, working 
on the farm and attending school in the stuith part of 
the village." Mr. Cole's father was killed by being 
thrown from an ox-cart on a rough road, the wheel 
passing over his chest and so injuring him that he died. 
This gives us a glimpse of the character of the roads of 
that day, and the fact that he was taking a grist to 
Wadhams to be ground goes to show that the grist 
mills at Northwest Bay were probably not running. It 
is true that the usefulness of these early grist mills was 
but short-lived. 

The history of Free Masonry in Essex county began 
with the establishment of Essex Lodge in the village of 
Essex in 1807. In 1818 the Valley Lodge at Elizabeth- 
town received a (diarter. Its first officers were Ezra C. 
Gross, W. M.; Luman Wadhams, S. W.; and John 
Barney, J. W. This is the lodcfe whose records 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT H51 

were carried away in the freshet of 1830, and which 
doubtless had some Westport men as members. Dia- 
dorus Holcomb and Ira Henderson were Masons, David 
B. McNeil belonged to the Essex Lodge, and the name 
of Joel Finney is also found upon its records. Joseph 
Call is said to have been a Mason. Meetings of the 
order were held from time to time in Westport, in a 
room of the house since known as the Kichards House, 
on Pleasant street. There Thomas Douglass was 
initiated into the mysteries of the order in the year 
1825, as his daughter, now Mrs. James A. Allen, dis- 

I tinctW remembers hearing him say. The only record 
which I have been fortunate enough to find is that 

! given in the last Essex County History, on page 323 : 
'Royal Arch Masonry in the county began, it would 

I seem, with the establishment of Westport Chapter No. 

I 127, at AYestport, February 27, 1827, with Joseph Cook, 

'! High Priest, Orris Pier, King, and Calvin Willey, Scribe, 
After making reports to the Grand Chapter for two years 

ij it disappears from the records." None of the names 

' given are those of Westport men. It is possible that 
the strong Anti-Masonic excitement which followed the 
disappearance of Morgan in 1826 may have operated 
against the prosperous continuance of this order at 
this time. The present lodge was established in 1852. 
This year was the "first great revival" of the churches, 
and the first camp meeting. The camp meeting was 
held on the little wooded point on the north shore of the 
bay, on the borders of the "Sisco farm," named from 
the family who lived on the hill above it. Here a plat- 



.V.52 



HIS TOR r OF WE ST PORT 



foriii was built under the trees for the preachers, who 
exhorted a coiigi'egatiou seated on h:)ng planks which 
were supported by stones and bh)cks, with no roof 
overhead save the leafy branches of the trees. The 
camp meeting held for one or two weeks, and people 
came froui far and uear, from the Vermont shore, from 
Lewis and Essex, from Barber's Point and Wadham's 
Mills, put up tents and bark roofed shanties for shelter, 
and lived there (jn the lake shore the wliole time, listen- 
ing to sermons and to the testimonies of converts all 
day long, with the culmination of the day's excitement 
invariably looked for at tlie evening service, lighted by 
the glare of great flaming torches of pitch pine. The 
preachers were of all denominations, called in alojjg 
b(jth shores of the lake, and their labors were rewarded 
with a large number of converts. The rec(n'ds of our 
village churches show a great increase in membership 
in this and the next year, and both must have soou 
doubled their numbers. 

There is doubtless a close connection between this 
revival and the fact that in this year the Congregational 
church was first organized at Wadham's Mills. If there 
had been a Congregational society there before this 
tiine, it was not in a flourishing condition, and there 
are no traces of it left. My efforts to obtain the early 
records of this church have been unavailing, the pres- 
ent clerk having in his possession nothing older than 
the book beginning in 1841. Smith's history of 1885 
gives the names ol the original members of 1827 as 
Luman Wadhams, Calvin Wiley, Jesse Braman, Alex- 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT SoS 

auder Wlntuey aucl Thomas Hacllej^ tbe date of the 
first meeting March 29, 1827, and the place the school 
house "near the residence of Jesse Braman." 

Besides the increase in membership, there is shown 
in the Baptist records a mounting zeal in the matter of 
eluirch discipline. Serious business it was felt to be, 
and seriously they did it, appointing solemn commit- 
tees to visit delinquents, and taking action upon the 
reports rendered at the next church meeting, but to one 
of the present generation a smile seems never far away 
when readinc: these deliberations, in which a neglect to 
attend church was dealt with as weightily as more 
flagrant otteuces. Poor Joseph Stacey, waited upon by 
one of these committees, confessed to working on board 
his boat on Sunday, instead of dressing up and going 
to church, and so we know that one of the white sails 
in the bay belonged to him. 

Dr. Cutting has left an account of this revival which 
shows in perfection the quiet, sincere dignity of his own 
faith, which never descended to small anxieties about 
the inconsistencies of others. 

"In 1826-27 occurred a revival in Westport. It was 
remarkable in character. Beginning in the early au- 
tumn of 1826, in a very general seriousness in the com- 
munity, it continued through the winter. Many were 
baptised, myself on the last Sabbath in May, by the 
Rev. Jeremy H. Dwyer, pastor of the Baptist church 
in that village. I can hardly tell how I became more 
deeply interested in religion. I think my own state 
of mind and feeling were in harmony from the first 



354 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

with the orrowing interest which pervaded the commu- 
nity. Long afterwards I learned that on retiring from 
the water, Mr. Dwyer remarked, 'I have baptised a 
minister to-day.' " 

18^8. 

Town Meetiog in the school house. 

Gideon Hamaiood, Supervisor. 

Samuel Cook, Jud., Town Clerk. 

Jesse Bramau, Piatt R. Halstead, Ephraim Stiles, As- 
sessors. 

Levi Frisbie, Collector. 

Jasou Dunster, Diadorus Holcomb, Alausou Barber, 
Highway Commissiouers. 

Levi Frisbie. William Frisbie, Calvin Wille3\ Constables. 

Elisha Garfield, Wm. B. Merriam, Alexander Spencer, 
School Commissioners. 

Diadorus S. Holcomb, Asahel Lyon, Piatt R. Halstead, 
School Inspectors. 

John Greeley, Isaac Stone, Caleb P. Cole, Fence Viewers. 

Newton Hays, Pound Master. 

Overseers of Highways.— Ralph Walton, Levi Coll. 
Union Coil, Tillinghast Cole, Caleb P. Cole, Willard Car- 
penter, John Greeley, Jr., Myron Cole, Eleazar Ranney, 
Samuel Chandler, George W. Sturtevant, Lemuel Whitney, 
Lucius Lobdell, Oliver H. Barrett, Samuel A. Wi.o-htman, 
John Kiugsley, .Johnson Hill, Lyman Smith, Gideon Ham- 
mond, Henry Stone, Frederick Howard, Arche}^ Dunton, 
Elijah Sherman, Jonas P. Walker, Abram Greeley, Geo. 
Skinner, Benajah Douglass. 

This year we find mention of another mill on Black 

river, — Chauncy Fuller's, besides "Steel's, Donglavss's, 

& Smith and Hatch's." The bridge in the village of 

Northwest Bay which has been so long referred to as 

that one "west of Halstead's old field," now begins to 

be called the one "near Myrick's Potash," and for the 

first time is mentioned Douglass's wharf. 



HISTORY OF WESTJ'ORT 355 

In 1828 Gideon Hammond was one of a committee 
of three appointed to decide upon the question of build- 
ing a county house for the care of the poor of the 
county. The house was built in 1833, and from that 
year until 1842 he served as County Superintendent of 
the Poor. 

This 3'ear, or the one before, John and Abram Gree- 
ley came into town, as is proved by their both being 
appointed overseers of highways. They were sons of 
John Greeley, who was born in 1759, and fought as a 
boy of sixteen at the battle of Bunker HilL He was a 
half brother of the father of Horace Greeley-, the fa- 
mous journalist. He removed from New Hampshire 
to Saratoga county, and from that place to Brookfield, 
in Essex, before the war of 1812, and he died in 1852, 
having lived ninety-three years. His son John fought 
in the war of 1812, and was wounded in the shoulder 
at the battle of Plattsburgh, afterward receiving a pen- 
sion." 

18Q9. 

Town meeting in the school house. 
Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 
John Hatch Low, Clerk. 

Alexander Spencer. Diadorus Holeomb. Jesse Braman. 
Assessors. 



*He was the father of James, and of Ruth, who married Henry Frisbie. Abram 
Greeley was the father of John J. Greeley, now a resident of Westpwrt. Three 
daughters of the first John Greeley married and lived in Westport. Nancy mar- 
ried William Olds, and their sons were Wallace and Marshall. Mary married 
William Viall, and their children were John G., Asa, Mrs. Orlando Sayre, after- 
ward Mrs. Whitney, and the first Mrs. F. H. Page. Phebe married Elijah Will 
iams, and their sons were Samuel and Joseph, boat-men on the lake for many years 
and A. Elijah, one of our druggists. 



:iryfi HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

John Chandler, Collector. 

John Lobdell and George B. Reynolds, Poor Masters. 

Alanson Barber, Asahel Lyon, John Kingsley, Highway 
Cummissioners. 

Charles Hatch, Diadorus S. Holcomb, Barnabas Myrick, 
School Commissioners. 

Asahel Lyon, Caleb C. Barnes, Joseph R. Delano, School 
Inspectors. 

B. P. Douglass, Norris McKinney, Sumner Whiting, 
Fence Viewers, 

William Frisbie. Peter Tarbell, John Chandler, Joseph 
Hardy, John D. Lobdell, Constables. 

Newton Hays, Pound Master. 

Overseers of the Highways. — Joseph Bigalow, Elihu H. 
Cole, Charles Fisher, John Ferris, Caleb P. Cole, John H. 
Low, John Greeley, Moses Bull, Calvin Angier, Henry 
Royce, Bildad Royce, Lemuel Whitney, Benjamin Hardy, 
Augustus Hill, Vine T. Bingham, Samuel Storrs, Leonard 
Ware, Abram Nichols, A ndrew Frisbie, Jonathan Nichols, 
Nelson Low, Solomon Stock well, Seth Lewis, Darius Mer- 
riam, James Marshall, Lucius Lobdell, Nathaniel Hinkley. 

Voted $100 for the support of the poor. 

Town meeting adjourned to the house of Elijah New- 
ell, which stood on Pleasant street. After holding the 
town meetings for twelve years in the all-accommoda- 
ting school house, the custom was adopted of holding 
them in some inn, and maintained until 1863, when the 
Armory was first used. 

We notice the name of Norris McKenny, who was a 
tailor, and built the house just north of the Baptist 
church, burned in 1876, which answers to the Baptist 
parsoQai^e of to-d ly. It was afterward owned by Dan 
Kent, by Ralph Loveland and by Victor Spencer. 

In 18'29 was published the 6rst map of Essex county, 
by David H. Burr, with statistics from the latest cen- 
sus given at the bottom. Here Westport is credited 



inSTORV OF WKSTPORT 3d7 

with having about oue-fif th of the land improved. Real 
estate is vahied at $86,423, and personal property at 
$1,400. There were 675 males and 647 females in the 
population, 167 subject to militia duty, and 287 enti- 
tled to vote at elections. There were eleven school 
districts in town, school had been kept an average of 
six months in the year, and the amount of public money 
received was $191.46. 424 children had been taught in 
the schools the past year, and there were reported 340 
children between the ages of 5 and 15. As for live 
stock, there were 1550 neat cattle, 237 horses, and 3801 
sheep. The most remarkable figures are those of the 
number of yards of cloth of domestic manufacture, 
woven by the women on hand looms. 3282 yards of 
fulled cloth, 4045 yards of woolen cloth not fulled, and 
2659 yards of cotton and linen. Think of those women, 
with their large families to caie for, standing at the 
loom day after day, and weaving the blankets and 
sheets for the beds, and the linen for the table-cloths, 
and clothing for themselves and for their hasbauds and 
children. And they spun the thread before they wove 
it, remember, and carded the wool before that, although 
the two carding machines in town were by this time re- 
lieving them of some of this part of the toilsome pro- 
cess. And this homespun, homewoven work was often 
very beautiful, as pieces of the linen still preserved will 
show. Only one grist mill is reported, which must 
have been that of Myrick and Wadhams at the Falls, 
and this seems to prove that Hatch's two grist mills 
at Northwest Bay and the one at Coil's Bay were no 



^^8 If IS TORY OF WESTPORT 

longer raiiDiug. Also, there is but one "iron works" 
reported, wliicli mnst mean Myrick's forge at the Falls, 
and would indicate that all the forges on the Black 
river were now idle. One trip hammer is reported, 
eleven saw mills, three fulling mills, two carding ma- 
chines, no distillery, four asheries and one oil mill. 
What an oil mill in Westport can have been I cannot 
imagine. There were two [iost offices then, as now, West- 
port and Wadham's Mills. 

Joseph R. DeLano, whose name is now first mentioned 
in the town records, came from Ticonderoga and opened 
a store and inn at Wadham's Mills, He was a son of 
Nathan DeLano, 2nd Lieutenant in Capt. Mackenzie's 
cavalry company in the war of 1812, and brother of 
Thomas DeLano of Ti. We soon find his name given 
as the incumbent of many town offices, and in 1841 he 
was elected the first supervisor from the village of 
Wadhams. His first wife was a Kimpton, of Ti, and 
their daughter Mahala married Col. John L. Merriam, 
afterward Governor of Minnesota. His second wife 
was Belief Law, and their children were : Electa, mar- 
ried Walter Merrill of Port Henry ; Albertine, married 
Duncan Thompson, now lives in Washington ; Rush, 
drowned in the Boquet when a boy, and Antoinette, 
married Isaac Wood of Wadhams. 



1880. 

Town meeting held at the Inn of Elijah Newell, 
Gideon Hammond, Supervisor. 
John H. Low, Town Clerk. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 359 

Piatt R. Halstead, Charles Fisher aud John Kingsley, 
Assessors. 

William Frisbie, Collector. 

George B. Reynolds and Barnabas Myrick, Overseers 
of the Poor. 

Hezeliiah Barber, Newton Hays, Calvin Augier, High- 
way Commissioners. 

Ira Henderson, Joel A Calhoun, Charles Hatch, School 
Commissioners. 

Diadorus S. Holcomb, Joseph R. DeLano, Asahel Lyon, 
School Inspectors. 

Wm Frisbie, Joseph Hardy and Asahel Lvon, Consta- 
bles. 

Newton Hayes, Pound Master. 

No fence viewers, aud the first Justices of the Peace 
mentioned. The entry in the town records is certified 
to by three Justices. Diadorus Holcomb, Jesse Braman 
and Alexander Speucer. 

Overseers ot Highways, or Pathmasters. — Apollos Wil- 
liams, Jr.. Levi Coll, Jr., Charles Fisher, Asahel Havens, 
Caleb P. Cole. Asahel Lyon, Elijah Williams, Horace Hol- 
comb, William Olds, Samuel Chandler, James Fortune, 
Francis Hardy, Jason Dunster, Augustus Hill, Samuel A. 
Wightmau, John Lobdell, Johnson Hill, Abraham Nichols, 
Andrew Frisoie, Henry Stone, James McConley, Archey 
Duuton, Elijah Sherman, Ephraim Colburn, James Mar- 
shall. Lucius Lobdell, Nathaniel Hinckley, Leonard Ware, 
Jonathan Cady. 

We find mentioned "Colburn's Mill," one belonging 
to Chester Taylor, and one to Garfield and Walker. 

K new road district is made. No. 38, "beginning at 
the lane west of Nathan W^allis's, then running north 
and east by James Pollard's, Erastus Loveland's, Leon- 
ard W^are's aud Eldad Kellogg's, until it intersects the 
Court House road." Still "Sherman's brook," which 
was the Raymond brook, called in its upper course the 
Stacy brook. 

The decade of the thirties saw the height of the lum- 



S60 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ber business. Myrick and W.'idhams, the Douglasses 
and the Hatches gave employment to large numbers of 
men in the forests, and upon the roads, hauling logs to 
tlie mills and the "dock sticks'' and the sawed lumber 
to the wharves. All this brought custom to the stores 
which were kept by Hatch and Douglass and Cutting, 
and by Myrick and Wadhams at the Falls, and the 
boat-loads of merchandise from New York began to 
contain more and more articles of luxury. By this time 
there were no log houses left in the village of North- 
west Bay, though many were still standing on outlying 
farms, and some of the best houses in town were built 
before 1835. Most of the brick houses belong to this 
period, and the heavy-timbered frame houses, like the 
one now owned by Dr. Shattuck, on Washington street. 
The Baptist church was built this year, the first church 
edifice in town, on the hill at the top of Washington 
street, opposite the house now occupied by Mr. Case 
Howard. The latter place was then owned by Piatt 
Rogers Halstead, who kept a bachelor's establishment, 
with a middle-aged houskeeper, always known as "Aunt 
Melinda," though she was no relative, and his sister Car- 
oline, then a girl of twenty-one. She began keeping a 
diary the first of July, and on the ninth she writes, 
"Yesterda}^ our meeting house was raised. Everything 
went on in good order. A prayer was made at the 
commencement by Elder Isaac Sawj^er. We witnessed 
the good effects of temperance, as no ardent spirits was 
drank on the ground." It was indeed a novelty to have 
no liquor at a "raising," and this incident shows that 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 361 

Temperance as a principle, and not simply as a matter 
of individual choice, was beginning to be advanced. 
That it was Hterally but a beginning could not be shown 
more conclusively than by the following incident, re- 
lated by Dr. S. S. Cutting twenty years after, when 
he was a Professor in Rochester University. 

"M}' earliest recollection of the Rev. Isaac Sawver is 
associated with an incident illustrative of his charac- 
ter. It was, I think, in the summer of 1827, before the 
tender of the cup had ceased to be an acknowledged 
part of the hospitalities of a Christian famil}^ The 
■iiinister of our church,— the Baptist church in West- 
port, N. Y., — had resigned, and Mr. Sawyer had been 
invited to visit the place with a view to the pastoral 
:)ffice. He, with the retiring minister, was a guest at 
uiy father's house, between the services of the Sabbath 
day. I, as the boy on whom that duty naturally de- 
volved, was directed to bear to our Reverend visitors 
the refreshment of brandy and water, with sugar at- 
tached; and this 1 did without a thought to that mo- 
ment of any connection between conscience and drink- 
ing, except that conscience forbade intemperate drink- 
ing. With the air of a true gentleman, quietly but 
friendly, Mr. Sawyer declined the cup. "It is a point 
of conscience with me," said the already venerable man; 
"I have united with some of my brethren in an obliga- 
tion to abstain entirely." "A point of conscience !" 
thought the astonished boy, — and he never forgot the 
lesson, or ceased to honour the minister of religion 
from whose lips those few words had fallen. Thank 



3(r2 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Heaveu, the cup ceased to be among the hospitalities 
of that home. 

Stories are told, aud true ones too, of the minister 
calling at some house which was temporarily destitute 
of spirits, and of the small boy of the family being 
smuggled out of the pantry window and sent in great 
secrecy for a new supply, all hoping that the minister 
might not suspect, as he drank with them the social 
glass, that it was not drawn from their own cellar. Mr. 
J. S. Boynton tells a story of a house in Jay, in the wall 
of which the owner imbedded a bottle of whisky, and 
then bricked it over, saying, "It shall never be said of 
me that I was at any time discovered without liquor in 
the house." I never heard of such extreme measures 
being taken in this town to escape the social disgrace 
of the times, but all these things show the condition of 
public opinion. 

Elder Isaac Sawyer was called to preach in April of 
1828, and was pastor of the church six years, receiving, 
according to the charch book, the salary of $200 a year, 
which was the largest salary yet paid up to that time. 
While he was here his sou .Miles married Caroline Hal- 
stead, and his daughter Mary married Austin Hickok. 
Elder Sawyer lived in the house on Washington street 
now owned by Dr. Charles Holt, and it would seem to 
have been built for him since my grandmother writes 
one day of calling on Mrs. Ira Henderson, -and adds, 
"Mrs. H. came with me over the bridge as far as the 
Elder's new house." 

This diary gives pleasant glimpses of the social life 



inSTORY OF WESrrORT S6S 

of the place for one year. These were the days when 
matches, envelopes and steel pens were still unknown, 
and the only means of lighting was by tallow candles, 
dipped or moulded in each household by hand, wax 
candles being brought from the city for extraordinary 
occasions. The parlor candle-sticks had become very 
elaborate affairs, arranged with circles of hanging 
prisms to reflect the light and add brilliancy to the 
room. Wall paper was still unknown, but I doubt if 
there were wainscoted walls in Westport, although a 
wainscot half way up the wall, with plaster above it, is 
seen in all the old houses. The height of fashion in 
china was the beautiful flowing blue, of which so few 
pieces have survived. 

The women wore the short-waisted dresses, w^ith 
skirts short and scant, showing feet clad in the thinnest 
of slippers and beautifully clocked stockings. The neck 
and arms were commonly left bare, and a cape carried 
ofl the arm to throw over the shoulders when it was 
cold. Perhaps this style of dress might account some- 
what for the number of deaths by consumption in those 
early years of the century. The hair was worn in high 
puffs and curls, with a high back comb, and sometimes 
with a curl falling each side of the face. The men wore 
high stocks, and their dress coats were cut away in front 
to show the most elaborate waist coats. Their hair 
was allowed to grow long enough to brush straight up in 
front and to curl back behind the ears in a manner 
much admired. The trousers were held neatly in place 
over the boots by straps under the instep, and the hat 



:ui4 lUSTORY OF WKSTPORT 

was bell-crowned with euiliug brim. Kuttted shirt 
fronts were completely out of fashion, but were still 
worn by some of the older men, and John Halstead 
wore long hose and silver buckled shoes as long as he 
lived. His son Piatt never wore an overcoat, but 
wrapped his militarj^ cloak about his spare figure when 
the weather was inclement, and it is partly on this ac- 
count that I am told by people who remember him that 
he strongly resembled the portrait of Yon Moltke. The 
women's bonnets were the great flaring "pokes," which 
stayed in fashion so many years, though the shapes 
changed slightly, so that a fine Leghorn bonnet might 
be bleached and "done over" on a new block from the 
city as often as once in two or three years, and it is no 
exaggeration to say that such a bonnet was often worn 
ten years without fear of comment from one's neigh- 
l)ors. In the simple life of the little lake shore village, 
people had plenty of leisure, and my grandmother's 
diary records many an afternoon visit, with neighbors 
(joming in uninvited to spend the evening in pleasant 
chat. On more formal occasions you were invited for 
the afternoon and to stay to tea, like the company 
which Mrs. Katy Scudder invites in the first chapter of 
"The Minister's Wooing." Mrs. Stowe's description of 
manners and conversation might have been given of 
Westport in the thirties, when it was etiquette to praise 
everything on the table, beginning with the weaving of 
the linen, which was of course the work of your hostess, 
and in perfectly good form to inquire of your vis-a-vis 
if he or she enjoyed religion. Once the diar}^ records: 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT :Vir> 

"Received compliments from Mrs. Wiglitman, with an 
invitation to visit her this p. M. Other company ex- 
pected, quite a little party." And after it was out, 
'Mary Sawyer, Mr. McKinney, Miles and I took a 
short walk, the evening being very inviting and called 
at Mr. Holcomb's." She had Jane McKinney and Julia 
Hickok and Mary Sawyer and other girls to stay with 
her over night, and unce they went on horseback to 
Tilliughast Cole's to eat warm sugar. There was also 
an invitation to a party at "Mr. Newel's," and after 
Mrs. Van Vleck had come to tea, as she frequently did, 
it was always endorsed "had an excellent visit." Then 
as for the religious meetings, they were an occupation 
in themselves. What would you think now of listening 
to two long sermons every Sunday, with a Sabbath 
school session between, and a prayer meeting in the 
evening, and then two or three more "conferences" 
through the week ? 

In August of this year occurred the great freshet 
which was felt through all the Cham plain valley. The 
diary says : "It has caused very extensive damages in 
niany diff'erent places, not so much in this as in many 
others. In New Haven, Vt., fourteen individuals were 
swept away by the torrent of waters rushing upon them 
in the dead of night." Though no lives were lost in 
Westport, mills and bridges went out along the 
Black and the Boquet, and Mill brook in the village 
carried awa}' all the mills which stood above the pres- 
ent dam. In September the house of Dr. Wright on 



366 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 



Pleasant street was burned, as is told in detail iu the 
diary. 

According to Watson, "Brainard's Forges, contain- 
ing two or three fires each, were erected in 1830, and 
stood on Black river, a few miles from the Court 
House." We know that David Brainard built a forge 
on the Bhick in 1817, and thi.s was doubtless rebuilt 
after the freshet. 

On the first of March, 1830, the First Baptist Church 
of Westport was legally incorporated as a religious so- 
ciety, with tJie following trustees : Gideon Hammond, 
Piatt B. Halstead, Ira.Henderson, George B. Reynolds, 
Dr. Dan. S. Wright, Horace Holcomb and John Kings- 
lev. 



1831. 

Town Meeting held at Elijah Newell 's. 

Barnabas Myrick. Supervisor. 

Diodorus S. Holcomb. Clerk. 

Jesse Bramau, Diodorus Ho-comb and Alaoson Barber, 
Assessors. 

George B. Reynolds and John Kingsley, Poor Masters. 

Hezekiah Barber, Newton Hays and Willard Church, 
Highway Commissioners. 

Asabel Lyon, Ira Henderson, Horace Holcomb, School 
Commissioners. 

Diodorus S. Holcomb, Elisha Garfield, Aaron B. Mack, 
School Inspectors. 

Joseph Hardy, Collector. 

Joseph Hardy, Samuel Chandler and Joel A. Calhoun, 
Constables. 

Phineas A. Durfy, Pound Master. 

The entry is certified to by three Justices, Jesse Bra- 
man, Alexander Speucer and Gideon Hammond. Two 
Justices were elected. Alexander Spencer and John H. 
Low. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT mi 

Pathmasters.— Howard Mitchell, E. H. Coll, James W. 
Coll. TilliDghast Cole, Caleb P. Cole, Austin Hickok, Bar- 
naoas Myrick, MyroQ C. Cole, Lutber Angier, Horatio 
Tjovel, George W . Sturtevant. Thomas Wesson, Moses Felt, 
Joel Finney, Nathan Chase, Ephraim Bull, Harvey Smith, 
Enos Lovelaud, Piatt Sheldon, William Stacy, John Stacy, 
Solomon Stockwell, HoUis Sherman, William McTntyre. 
Mexander McDougal, Silas Daniels, Ebenezer Douglass, 
j^rastus Loveland, Jonathan Cady. 

Town Meeting adjourned to Elijah Newell's. 

This year New Year's Day fell on Saturday. Oq 
Sunday the diary notes "Attended meeting. Elder 
Sawyer's text was in Jeremiah 28:16; Tliis year thou 
shalt die. A solemn and impressive discourse." Such 
a text, dwelt upon with the most positive conviction, 
and delivered to a congregation which had not yet 
learned to doubt, might well produce an impression. 
The power of the preaching of those days lay greatly 
in a fervent faith in the supernatural. One of Elder 
Sawyer's early experiences had been this. When a 
rough, untutored lad, living in wilderness Vermont, he 
learned to play cards. One night he and another boy 
stole away by themselves, with one half-burned candle 
for light, to play a game on th'e floor of a barn. Be- 
coming absorbed in the game, which called for a keen- 
ness of observation aud of forethought never before re- 
quired in any recreation of their dull lives, they played 
all night long, nor thought to stop until daylight began 
to break. Recalled to recognition of their surround- 
ings, they saw that the candle was still burning bright- 
ly, and was as long as it had been when they first lighted 
it, hours before. Each felt sure that he had neither 



368 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

souifed the caudle nor put a uew one into the candle- 
stick since they began to pla3\ The conclusion was 
obvious. Since it was to the advantage of no one so 
much as to the Evil One himself that they should de- 
vote themselves to such unholy practices as card play- 
ing, it was plain that he, and no other, had snuffed the 
candle and replenished it, and so prolonged their wick- 
edness to suit his own ends. Now if you believed that, 
as Isaac Sawyer believed it, you would look upon a 
playing card with the same horror that he felt, that is, 
you would act upon your conviction as he did. The 
next generation of Sawyers never played cards. In the 
generation after that the spell had weakened, so that 
when my mother told me the stor}^ she explained the 
absorption of the boys who snuffed the candle and 
changed it unconsciously, and afterward were made 
cowards by their own consciences, but nevertheless she 
still felt the inherited horror stronger than reason, so 
that the sight of a playing card was actually unpleasant 
to her. Now the preaching of a man who has such be- 
lief as that in the nearness of the supernatural, deliv- 
ered perhaps some night of the camp meeting which 
was again held this 3'ear on the Sisco farm, when the 
light of the torches was reflected in the water, and made 
such deep shadows behind the tree trunks, and the 
voice of the preacher seemed to come from some un- 
known country, may well have produced an effect such 
as the great revival which followed. Not that he was 
the only one who spoke from the strength of such con- 
victions, and spoke with power. Father Comstock took 



HISTORY OF WEST PORT 369 

a leading part in these camp meetings, and the Metho- 
dist preachers of this time were Orville Kyrepton, G. 
W. Este}^ Hiram Chase and P. M. Hitchcok. 

Dr. Cutting wrote as follows in regard to the relig- 
ious history of the year : "I well remember a revival 
which occurred in 1831. I was a student at the time, 
at home in search of health. On my arrival, I found 
preparations in progress for a 'Four Days Meet- 
ing.' The frame of the house of worship had been for 
some time raised, but the work had proceeded slowly. 
Roof and rough boarding were now hurried on ; a loose 
flooring was laid ; rude benclies were to furnish sittings 
for the congregation, and a carpenter's bench a plat- 
form for the preachers. The moral preparations seemed 
to be less adequate, xl meeting largely attended was 
held in a school-house on the evening previous to the 
great gathering in the unfinished church. The Provi- 
dence of God had brought to the village, and that even- 
ing, the venerable Father Comstock, a Congregational 
minister, long known and honoured in Northern New 
York. On these aged men devolved the duty of the 
religious instructions of that evening. Father Com- 
stock preached, making the union of Christians in love, 
and prayers and labours, the burden of his message, and 
reaching a strain of Christian eloquence which it has 
never been my lot to witness on any other occasion. 
Father Sawyer followed, reiterating and applying these 
instructions, and, before the evening closed, the mem- 
bers of the church, to that hour so languid and so 
wanting in faith as well-nigh to quench the hope of a 



370 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

blessing, were brought upon their knees in confessions 
and prayers which were the sure precursors of a great 
ingathering of souls. This great revival was, I believe, 
the last under the ministry of Father Sawyer at West- 
port, and illustrated, as it seems to me, the excellence 
and height of his power as a Christian Pastor." 

This year the first class meeting of the Methodist 
Episcopal church was organized at AVadhams Mills, 
composed as follows : Captain Levi Frisbie, leader, 
with Nathan Jones, Thomas Wessons, Mrs. T. Wessons, 
Cyrenus Payne and a Lack family, in all ten persons, as 
members. From this time on there Avas regular preach- 
ing at the Falls by the circuit rider. 

The year was signalized by great accessions to all 
the churches. The Baptist church records show sixty- 
one additions in 1830, and forty-eight in the succeeding 
years, and there was a corresponding increase in the 
M. E. church. As might be expected, changes were 
sometimes made from one church to the other, as when 
Diadorus Holcomb and his wife Sylva left the Baptist 
church for the Methodist. These were trying occa- 
sions, and doctrinal discussions were frequent and 
searching, forming a common topic of conversation. It 
was at al)out this time that the wife of Elder Isaac Saw- 
3'er (born Mary Willoughby,) delivered one of those 
pithy sayings so fondly cherished by posterity as indi- 
cative of character : "We hear a great deal about Free- 
will Baptists," said she, "and Hard-shell Baptists, but 
the greatest trouble I have is with self-willed Baptists!" 

Another subject of conversation was the Anti-Masonic 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 371 

movement, which had beeu grovviug ever since the mys- 
terious disappearance of Morgan in 1826, and was 
now at its height as a political power. Caroline Hal- 
stead wrote in her diary in 1830, "Attended the Asso- 
ciation (of the Baptist Churches) in October. The pro- 
ceedings there caused me many very painful feelings. 
Some of the churches were more engaged about Anti- 
Masonry than religion, I fear." But all were not of 
her mind, for the Westport churches passed a stroug 
resolution against Free Masonry in 1831, followed, it 
would seem, by divisions and unhappiness, as might 
have been expected. "Sister (Mary Hunter) Cutting" 
coofessed in 1833 to having been much "troubled about 
Masonry," being apparently quite out of sympathy with 
the action of the church. 

This year the hotel at Wadhams was built by Isaac 
Alden, a descendant of John Alden of the Mayflower^ 
His wife was the first white child born in the vicinity 
of Montpelier, Vt. He was the father of Gen. Alonzo 
Alden of the Civil War, who w^as born at Wadhams in 
183tl, attended the Academy at Keeseville, and in 1845 
taught school in Westport. He afterward graduated 
from William Colleges, and practiced law in Troy until 
the Civil War, in which he rendered distinguished serv- 
ices, becoming a brigadier-general. 

1832. 

TovvD Meeting at Elijah Newell 's. 
Barnabas M^'rick, Supervisor. 
Aaron B. Mack, Clerk. 



S7'2 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Jesse BramaD, Alansoo Barber, Gideoa Hammond, As- 
sessors. 

Joseph Hardy, Collector. 

George B. Revoolds and John Chandler, Poor Masters. 

James W. Coll, Willard Church, Newton Hays, Highway 
Commissioners. 

Ira Henderson, Horace Holcomb, Asahel Lyon, School 
Con.missioners. 

Joseph K. Delano, D. S. Holcomb, Abiathar Pollard, 
School Inspectors. 

Joseph Hardy, Theron Slaughter and Joel A. Calhoun, 
Constables. 

Newton Hays, Pound Master, and also the incumbent of 
a new office, that of TownSealer of Weights and Measures.* 

Gideon Hammond, Justice. 

Pathmasters— Joseph Biijelow, John Stone, Alanson 
Barber, Asa Loveland, Caleb P. Cole, Asahel Lyon, Bar- 
nabas Myrick, Myron C. Cole. Nathaciel Allen, Henry 
Royce. George Fortune, Isaac Alden, Thomas Hadley, Au- 
gustus Hill^ Sam-uel A. Wightman, John Lobdell, Johnson 
Hill, Timoihy Draper, Andrew Prisbie, Jonathan Nichols, 
Giles Shirtliff, Forest M. Goodspeed, Eli Ferris, Ephraim 
Coulbui-n, Josepo Farnham, John Sweat, Nathaniel Hinu- 
ley. George Vaughan, Jonathan Cady. 

Voted ti) the support of the poor, $93.75. 

It was this day enacted that the collector should "collect 
for three per cent, of the whole amount." Also tnat school 
commissioners and school inspectors should serve for $1.00 
a day. Also that all neat cattle should run as free com- 
moners, and that a lawful fence '"must be made of sound 
materials and be 4^ feet high. 

It was in 1832 that the KeiUs came, from Benson, 
Vt., and a new indnstrv was started. Dan Kent was a 
hatter, and he made hats in a building at the east end 
ot the bridge at Northwest Bay, employing a number of 

*This office, which was regularly filled every year for twenty-two years, was 
considered very important at the time. It was the duty of the Sealer to examine 
weights and measures in the town, and certify those which accorded to the legal 
standard by affixing a seal. This was a protection to the ignorant or unwary from 
unscrupulous dealers, and also a welcome endorsement for all honest tradesmen. 



HISTORY OF WESrrORT 373 

men. This '*bat shop," standing where the public 
fountain now stands, was three-storied, and built in a 
square, massive style, with many windows. It was 
used as a tenement after the manufacture of hats ceased 
to be profitable, and was not torn down until about 
1887. The builder was David Clark, (grandfather of 
the present builder of the same name,") and the first 
owner seems to have been John H. Low. 

Dan H. Kent married Samantha Hammond, daughter 
of Gideon. His sister Harriet married Ralph Love- 
land, son of Erastus and grandson of Enos. Katharine 
Kent was a peculiarly beloved school teacher among 
the village children, and married the Rev. Mr. Whit- 
ney.* Augusta Kent was also a school teacher, in 
Westport and in the south, and married Mr. Victor 
Spencer, who was book-keeper for Silas Witherbee at 
Jacksonville, and also well-known as a teacher. He 
was for a while in business with Dr. Richardson of 
Whallonsburgh, and afterward went to Michigan, where 
he was connected with Mr. Loveland in the lumber 
business. Mrs. Spencer has been of the greatest assist- 
ance in preparing this part of this history, especially in 
a vivid account of the village as she first saw it, com- 
ing into it on the road from Barber's Point, a lit- 
tle girl nine years old. So many changes have come 

*One of the most irrepressible of the boys who went to school to Miss Kent was 
Conant Sawyer, and he afterward gave evidence of the love and respect which she 
inspired in him by naming his daughter after her. The Kents were cousins of 
Mrs. Katy Childs Walker, a well-known contributor to the Atlantic Monthly of a 
generation ago. One of her wittiest and most often quoted articles was "The 
Total Depravity of Inanimate Things." She often visited in Westport. 



374 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

about in the seventy j^ears since then that it would take 
pages to explain to a stranger her account of the houses 
which stood between the Point and the bridge in the 
village, but it has been invaluable to the writer as 
the one point of solid ground upon which to stand in 
looking forward and back in an estimate of the histori- 
cal growth of the village. She saw a little country 
place, of hardly more than one street running along 
above the shore, quiet and yet busy, slow but not yet 
shabby, with good houses and well-dressed people, and 
a social life in which it was possible, to find cultivated 
minds and manners, with leisure for conversation. 

Many a glimpse of these conditions is given in Mrs. 
Spencer's letters, like this incident of her first summer 
in Westport. 

"Eliza Durph}^ lived at our house then, and took me 
with her to Caroline Sawyer's, — the old Halstead house 
on the corner. She was after a copy of the missionary 
hymn written, I think, by the author of 'America,' 
Smith. It began : 

'Yes, my native land, 1 love thee well; 

Can I, can I leave thee, far in heathen lands to dwell?" 

"I remember so well your grandmother's soft voice 
and pleasant ways, and the big bunch of flowers she 
gave me, with some pink lavender which she called 'cu- 
pids.' Your mother was born soon after. I was only 
nine years older than she was." A missionary hymn 
and a gift of flowers, remembered for seventy years, 
show that there was gentleness and refinement at home 
in this remote place. And the child who "was born 



HISTORY OF WESTPOET 375 

soon after" loved flowers aud poetry with a passionate 
love all her life. 

Mrs. Spencer goes on to say that Aaron B. Mack built 
the brick house just north of Judge Hatch's, afterward 
occupied b}^ Charles B. Hatch, that summer, and in the 
fall the house still further north, commonly called "the 
Aikens house," from the fact that Judge Aikens after- 
ward owned it, was built for John H. Low. 

This was Dr. Abiathar Pollard's first year in West- 
port, he being elected school inspector immediately 
after his arrival. He was born in Bridgewater, Yt., in 
1808, and had just graduated from Castleton Medical 
College= His parents were Abiathar Pollard, from 
Massachusetts, and Comfort Sisco Pollard. The Sis- 
cos had been at Sisco bay at least since 1824. After 
about four years' practice in Westport, Dr. Pollard at- 
tended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and 
in 1835 married Hannah Douglass, daughter of Ebe- 
nezer. He was six years in Chazy, Clinton county, 
eight years in Keeseville, two in New York and eight in 
Cahfornia, and in 1861 returned to Westport and there 
remained until his death. 



1833. 

To WD Meetinof held at the Inn of Newton Hays. 
Asahel Lvoo. Supervisor. 
AaroD B. Mack, Clerk. 
Jesse Bramao, Justice. 
Newton Hays, Collector. 

Alexander Spencer, Diodorus Holcomb, Joseph Hardy, 
Assessors. 



376 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Hezekiah Barber, James W. Coll. John Greely, Jr., 
Highway Commissioners. 

Abiathar Pollard, Horace Holcomb, Ira HendersoD, 
School Commissioners. 

D. S. Holcomb, Asahel Lyon, Myron C. Cole, School In- 
spectors. 

George B. Reynolds and Abel Baldwin, Poor Masters. 

Newton Hays, Joel A. Calhoun, Therou Slaughter, Con- 
stables. 

Newton Hays, Pound Master, and Sealer of Weights and 
Measures. 

Pathmaster — Horace Ormsby, Isaac Stone, Ebenezer 
Spencer, Andrew Frisbie, William Frisbie, Norris Mc- 
Kinny, Cyrus Richards, Myron C. Cole, Calvin Angier, 
Danea Dodge, Willard Church, Lemuel Whitney, Abel 
Baldwin, Joel Finney. Jeduthan Cobb, Willard Hartwell, 
Amos Smith, Oliver B. Babcock, Piatt Sheldon, William 
Stacy, William Perkins, Archy Duuton, Orrin Skinner, 
Moses Felt, Edward Harper, George Skinner, Nathaniel 
Hinkley, George Vaughan, Jonathan Cad}^, Elisha Royce. 

It was voted that the balance of the money in the hands 
of the Poor Masters belonging to the town should be ap- 
plied to the purchase of Weights and Measures. 

"The Inn of Newton Hays" stood on the corner of 
Main and Washington streets, on the present Library 
lawn. Tradition saith that this inn was first built by 
Aaron Felt. Next year we find it occupied by Harry 
J. Person. I have been told that Newton Hays built 
the brick house standing above the Lil)rary, so long 
know^n as "the Walker Eddy house," at about this time. 
In the road surveys we find a new road laid out "from 
Douglass wharf to David S. McLeod's." The McLeod 
house on the corner was burned in 1901. 

1834. 

This year the Town Meeting was held "at the Inn of H. 
J. Person." This shows tnat it was at this time that H. 



i 



mSTORY OF WESrrORT H77 

J. Person bought the hotel on the corner, which was so 
well known a landmark until it was burned in the fire of 
1876. Mr. Person kept it until his death. 

Ebenezer Douglass, Supervisor. 

Benjamin P. Douglass, Clerk. 

Diodorus Holcomb, Justice. 

Alanson Barber, John Chandler and Joseph Hardy, As- 
sessors. 

Hezekiah Barber, John Greely, Jr., Abel Baldwin, Road 
Commissioners. 

Newton Hays, Collector. 

Ira Henderson, D. S. Holcomb, William L. Wadharas, 
School Commissioners. 

Miles M'F. Sawyer, Abiathar Pollard, Joseph R. Delano, 
School Inspectors. 

John Lobdeli, Levi Frisbie, Poor Masters. 

Newton Hays, Theron Slaughter, Marcus J. Hoisington, 
Granville Stone, Joel A. Calhoun, Constables. 

Enos S. Waroer, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Norris McKiuney and Thomas Weston, Pound Keepers. 

Two pounds are established this year, for the first time, 
showing the increasing needs of a growing settlement. 
Norris McKinney lived at North West Bay, and Thomas 
Weston near Wadhams Mills. 

Pathmasters. — Thomas Lock, Otis Sheldon, Union Coll, 
Noel Merrill, David Rogers, Newton Hays, John Greely, 
Jr., Willard Frisbie, Eleazar H. Ranuey, Henry Royce, 
George W. Sturtevant, Jason Braman, Joseph Hardy, 
Charles Dentou, John Stanton, John Lobdeli, Ephraim 
Bull, Lyman Smith, John F. Alexander, William Perkins, 
Giles Siiirtletf, Stephen Barber, Lee Prouty, Moses Felt, 
Robert McDougal, Leonard Taylor, Ebenezer Douglass, 
George Vaughan, Jonathan Cady, Thomas Fortune. 

Voted to appropriate $5.81 to purchase the Desk ex- 
amined by the Auditors for the deposit of town Books and 
Papers. The Auditors were the Town Board. 

This year a road was discontinued, "beginning at the 
intersection of the road leading from O. H. Barrett's with 
the road leading from Wadhams Mills to John Daniels' 
forge, to the north line of Jesse Braman's Lot." 

The surveyor was Joel K. French. 

It was about this time, perhaps somev^hat earlier, 



:i7S n/STORV OF WESTPORT 

that Asahel Root came from Elizabetbtown and settled 
on the hike road, ou the farm so long occupied by his 
sou, Col. Samuel Root, until the property was sold to 
the Westport Farms in 1897. Col Root was a boy of 
sixteen when the family moved into town. He after- 
ward married Cynthia Fisher, and one of their daugh- 
ters is Mrs. Charles H. Pattisou of Moriah. He re- 
ceived his title through being elected Colonel of the 
militia at the time of the Civil War, and though he 
never went to the front, he did gallant service in rais- 
ing the war quota of the town. (His father had been 
a sergeant in the militia during the war of 1812.) He 
might be called our "war supervisor/* since he held 
that office from 1860 to 1863. He represented the 
county in the Assembly 1868 and 1869. 

In 18B4, David Clark came to this village with his 
family, from Cornwall, Yt. He was a house builder, 
and a good proportion of the houses now standing in 
Westport were built by him,and by his son, and by his 
grandson, the latter being still the principal contractor 
for new buildings. Mr. Aaron Clark was for many years 
a prominent man in the affairs of the M. K church. 
He married Harriet Clark, a grand-daughter of Capt» 
Levi Frisbie, and their children were : David married 
Minnie Pattison. Aaron B. took orders in the Episco- 
pal Church, and is now living in Dakota. Mary mar- 
ried Edn)und J. Floyd. Theresa married Nelson J. 
Gibbs. Anna married Mr. Middlebrook, and is now 
living in Yergennes. 

Immitrratiou was now brisk fiom all directions. Froiii 



TIISTORY OF WESTPOirr HT'J 

the north came in the Stevensons, and settled in the 
extreme south of Bessboro, on the lake shore. This 
famiW came from Kelso, Scotland, on the river Tweed. 
William Stevenson was a carpenter, and he, with 
his wife, three sons and one daughter, came to 
America about 1830, landing at Quebec and com- 
ing from there to Whallonsburgh, and a ilttle 
later to Westport where he bought a farm near the 
"stone bridge," at the mouth of Beaver Brook. The 
cann}^ Scotchman watched his neighbors at their farm- 
ing, and observed that they were using an old-fashioned 
kind of plow, not adapted to the soil which they were 
working. He had made for himself a plow after the pat- 
tern of those which he had seen in the old country, and 
so introduced the first "long-mold-board, long handled 
plow" ever seen in Westport. The Stevensons were all 
skilled mechanics, the three sons working for the Bay 
State Iron Company at Port Henry for many A^ears, 
l)esides carrying on their farms in Westport.^ 

This was one of the earliest springs on record, the 
ice beine out of the lake at Plattsburcrh March 15. But 



♦William Stevenson was thrice married. His son Thomas wag the child of the 
first wife, John of the second wife, and Alexander and Margaret of the third wife. 
Thomas married Isabella dughter of Robert Williamson of Galtonside, 
Roxboroshire, and they had six children, the oldest of whom was L,ieut 
William Henry Stevenson of Co. F, iiSth N. Y. V. John Stevenson married 
Sarah VanAntwerp, and they had six children, of whom Jacob V. was in the 
77th N. Y. v., and William was also in the service of the United States 
during the Civil War. Alexander married his cousin, Margaret, daughter 
of Robert Richardson, and they had nine children, the oldest of whom 
is Robert Richardson Stevenson, at one time editor of the Ticonderoga 
Sentinel, and School Commissioner. (Charles W. Stevenson of Westport is his 
son.) 



380 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

it was also a year when the spriug went backward, as 
the 14.th aucl 15th of May saw a great snow storm, pil- 
ing the snow iu drifts. Barnabas Myrick went to the 
Assembly at x\lbany this year, and another event, quite 
as much a matter of comment, was the death of Joseph 
Call— "Joe Call, the Lewis giant,"-~-who had moved to 
Westport some years before this time. Essex county 
mythology is enriched by many a yarn about the 
strength of this man. He had been a soldier in the 
British army, had won a watch in a wrestling match in 
Scotland, had come to America and fought on our side 
in the war of 1812, had crushed l>etween his hands a 
British grenadier in Plattsburgh who would not wrestle 
fairly, and was altogether beloved as a typical embodi- 
ment of the strength of the young republic pitted 
against the unfair bullying of England. One delightful 
story, altogether "too good to be true," is of his fame 
reaching to England, or perhaps being never forgotten 
there, and of a champion wrestler crossing the seas 
aud seeking him out on his Lewis farm, where he was 
discovered plowing. Now Joe Call did not show his 
immense strength at the first glance, being no more 
than six feet high, and "heavier'n be looked," 
{perhaps when local geuius elaborates this point 
there is a subtle intention to imply that one must I 

Margaret, daughted of William Stevenson, married John Ormiston, who came 
from Berwick-on-Tweed, and they had seven children. As William Stevenson, 
the founder of the family in America, had twenty-eight grand children, nearly all 
of them born in Westport, no one will expect me to so much as make a 
beginning at naming his descendants. The records of this family have been kept 
with an admirable fidelity and exactness, showing that the spirit of the old Scot- 
tish clan still survives among these American Stevensons, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 3S] 

be much more than six feet high and proportionately 
strong to excite notice among our stalwart mountain- 
eers,) and when the stranger inquired the way to Joe 
CalFs house, the plowman lifted his plow in one hand 
and silently pointed to the nearest farmhouse ! Of 
course the story concludes with the statement that the 
stranger had no courage to try a fall with the famous 
wrestler after that. 

On May 1st, 1834, the Essex County Academy was 
established in Westport under an act of the Legislature 
authorizing Asah-el Lyon, Flatt Eogers Halstead and 
Benajah P. Douglass to incorporate the same. This 
Academy w^as for twenty years or more one of the most 
important schools along the lake receiving students 
from New York and Montreal, as well as from Vermont 
and fr-om all the towns of the county. Its sessions were 
held in a large building on the south side of Washing- 
ton street, (on the site now owned by Frank E. Smith,) 
which was built for a dwelling house by Austin Hickok* 
a few 3^ears before this time. The large white house 
just above it, now occupied by Mrs. E. B. Low, was 
built as a boarding house for the x4.cademy, and so used 
its long as the Academy flourished. The old Academy 
building burued about 1874. The first trustees of the 
Academj^ were Aaron B. Mack, Judge Charles Hatch, 
Charles B. Hatch, George B. Beynolds, Ira Henderson, 
Norris McKinney, Barnabas My rick, Caleb P. Cole and 
Joseph Cole. The capital was $2500, in shares of $25 

♦Austin Hickok was a brother of Dr. Henry Hickok, so long pastor of the Pres- 
byterian Church of Orange, N. J., and Mrs. C. H, Eddy (born Marietta Hickok) 
was his sister. 



3S2 mSTOKY OF WESTFURT 

each. March 6, 1838, the Academy received a charter 
from the Regents. 

This year a parsonage was purchased for the M. E, 
church, but 1 have failed to fiod where it stood. The 
committee appoiuted to manage the business was John 
Gibbs, Joseph Burlingame, R. S. Odell, D. Holcomb 
and Wilham Frisbie. At this time Westport and 
Moriah belonged to the Middlebury District, and 
the preachers were Ezra Saj^res and Andrew C. Mills. 
The summer camp meeting was held, not on the lake 
shore, but in a grove near the brook on Piatt Halstead's 
farm — since Albert Carpenter's. 

This year Capt. Ira Henderson, the boat -builder, 
erected a large house on North street with fireplaces 
and brick oven. In 1848 it was converted into a hotel 
by his sou-in-law, William Richards, and so used until 
it was burned in 1893. 

1836. 

TowD Meeting at the Idq of H. J. PersoQ. 

Ebetiezei- Douglass. Supervisor. 

Beuajah P. Douglass, ClerK. 

Ira Henderson, Justice. 

Horace Holcomb, Abel Baldwio, IsaacStone, Assessors. 

i\jiles M'P. Sawyer, Alanson Baroer, Moses Pelt, Road 
Commissioners. 

Marcus J. Hoisiuo-ton, Collector. 

D. S. Holcomb, Abithar Pollard, William Frisbie, School 
Commissioners. 

Eqos S. VVciruer, Asahel Lyon, Albert P. Cole, School 
Inspectors. 

Newton Hays, Marcus J. Hoisington, Alanson Denton, 
Constables. 

Levi Frisbie and John Lobdell, Poor Masters. 

Barnabas My rick. Sealer of Weights and Measures. 






HISTORY OF WESTPORT SS.i 

Pathraasters. — Thomas Lock, Ephraitn Colburn, Union 
Coll, Levi Frisbie, Amos Culver, Newton Hays. Hiram 
Ayres, Willard Frisbie, Calvin Angier, Charles M. Church, 
Abram E. Wadhams, Jason Dunster, Augustus Hill, Oliver 
H. Barrett, Willard Hartwell, Johnson Hill, David Smith, 
John F. Alexander, Jonathan Nichols, Bejamin West- 
gate, Solomon Stockwell, John Charaberlin, Darius Mer- 
riam, Joseph Farnam, George Skinner, Ebeuezer Doug- 
lass, George Vaughan, Jonathan Cady, Emory Mather. 

Voted that the balance of money in the hands of the Poor 
Masters be applied for the support of the common schools, 
and that the books kept by the Poor Masters be deposited 
In the Town Clerk's office. 

That the School Commissioners revise and regulate the 
boundaries of the school districts. 

Adjourned to Spencer's Hotel. 

This year a special Town Meeting was called in June to 
elect an Assessor in the place of Isaac Stone, who did not 
serve. Diadorus Holcomb was elected t3 the vacant place. 

In the road surveys we find an alteration of the road 
''leading from Whallon's Mills to North West Bay, begin- 
ning opposite Henry Royce's dwelling house." The sur- 
veyors were Abram Stone and Joel K. French. A new 
road was opened ''from Moses Felt's to Darius Merriam's, 
and to Felt and Merriam's Mill Yard." Piatt Rogers Hal- 
stead surveyed .a road "Irom Luther Angler's to Whallon's 
Mill." 

Now begins another era, with the prosperous exist- 
ence of the Academy. From the first, AVestport has 
never been unmindful of her schools. Even the primi- 
tive district schools seem never to have been taught by 
the most worthless members of the community, as some 
stories of early backwoods schools in other places would 
indicate, and Dr. Cutting has left his testimony that in 
18'23 he found what he calls ''a good school" at North- 
■svest Bay. We wdsh he had recorded the teacher's 
.name, as very few of the early teachers are remembered 
to-c\ii}\ The names of Miss Cadv and Miss Bates are 



384 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

mentioned, aud we kuow that Lucetta Loveland, (after- 
ward Mrs. Egerton,) and Huldah Holcomb, (afterward 
Mrs. Bartlett,) taught several terms. Later, the teach- 
ers of the township were almost universally from the 
Academy — Mr. Wheaton Cole writes : "Afterward I 
attended the Westport Academy, where I finished 
my school work, and began teaching in Panton, Yt., 
at the princely salary of eleven dollars per month, 
and boarded around. Four months gave me forty- 
four dollars. I was rich. It was the most mon- 
ey I had ever had at one time in my life. I 
alM^aj's loved the school room, and taught twelve terms, 
ten of them in Westport schools. I was the town su- 
perintendent for Westport, and in after years was the 
county superintendent of Fayette county, Iowa, for 
seven years. My last school was taught at Wadhams 
Mills; the teacher left, and I finished the school term." 
Happily, a catalog of the first working year of the 
Academy has remained, not yet "overtaken by etern- 
ity," like so mau}^ documents that we would like to 
see. It is here printed entire. After the names of res- 
ident pupils the address "Westport" is omitted. 



Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the 
Essex County academy, Westport, 

FOR THE year 1836. 

Trustees: Charles Hatch, George B. Reynolds, Aaron 
B. Mack, Barcabas Myrick, Ira Henderson, Charles B. 
Hatch, Norris McKinney, Caleb Cole, Abiathar Pollard, 
M. U. 

Instructors: Orson Kellogg, A. M., Principal. 



Ill STORY OF WESTPORT 385 

Abial P. Mead, M. D., (of Essex,) Lecturer. 

Mr. Jesse P. Bishop, Male Teacher. 

Miss Emily P. Gross, (of Keeseville,) Teacher. 

Miss Mary Severance, Music Teacher. 

Miss C. S. L. McLeod, Teacher of Primary 
School. 

Evander W. Ranney, M. D., appointed Lect- 
urer for the ensuing year. 

Male Departmeiit. 

Lewis Bartlett, Jay. Jesse P. Bishop, Pauton, Vt. 
John F. Donner, Montreal, L. C. Judson Bostwick. Ed- 
win N. Bostwick, Montreal. James P. Butler, Moriah. 
Thomas W. Call. Francis Chase, Keene. Adams Clark, 
David Clark, Aaron Clark, Dexter B. Colburne, Moses 
Coll, Harry N. Cole, Dan Cuttino-. Thomas Donaldson, 
New York City. Ebenezer Doug'lass, Ticonderoga. Francis 
A. Dout^lass, Ticonderoga. Edward Douglass. Cornwall, 
Vt. James W. Eddy, Samuel H. Farnsworth. Daniel 
French, Lewis. James Farnsworth. Albert A. Farns- 
worth, Lewis. Henry Farnsworth, Fort Ann. Martin 
Farraud, Jeremiah Flinn. AbielGould, Randolph, Vt. John 
S. Gould, Essex. Luther B. Hammond, Rensselaer B.Ham- 
mond, Henry Hapgood, Edwin Hatch, Percival Hatch, 
George W. Henderson. Willian Higby, Willsborough. 
William Holcomb, Benjamin Frank Holcomb, William Hod- 
ges. John Howard, Moriah. Lucius Howard. Daniel 
Howard, New Haven, Vt. Cyrus Kellogg, Elizabethtown. 
Richard Henry Lee, Lewis. Benjamin F. Lee, Lewis. 
Diadorus H. Loveland, Ralph A. Loveland, Solon Lovell, 
Lucius Lyon. Henry Marks, Elizabethtown. Foster Mc- 
Kinney. John L. Merriam, Essex. Ira Myrick, Nathan 
Myrick. Rowland J. Nichols, Lewis. .William H. Peck, 
Keeseville. Michael Phyfe, New York City. William 
Phyfe, New York City. Orrin Reed, Jay. Alva C. Rog- 
ers, Anson Rogers, David Rogers, Samuel Root. Stephen 
Rowe, Chesterfield. John N. Rust, New York City. 
Cyrus Riciiards, Charles Richards. John Sayre. Samuel 
M. Scott, Keene. William G. T. Shedd, Willsborough. 
Henry Shedd, Willsborough. Marshall Shedd, Wills- 
borough. Edward Shumway. Essex. Dennis B. Stacey, 
Charles Stucey. Thomas *D. Stafford, Essex. Miron 



386 m STORY OF WFSTPORT 

Stearnes, ElizabethtowQ. Alpheus Stone, StilltTian Stooe. 
Jonathan Tarbell, Moriah. David T. Taylor, New York 
City. Obed Taylor, Essex. John C. Thompson, Burlint,'- 
ton, Vt. Higby Throop, Willsborough. Daniel Whallon, 
Essex. Reuben Whallon, Essex. Samuel M. Williams. 
Russell I. Williams, Sudbury, Vt. Barnum Winans, 
Ferrisburgh, Vt. Sarell Wood, Jay. Alva Woods, 
Crown Point. 



Female Depai'tinent. 

Eliza Angier, Nancy Angier. Sally Bishop, Lewis. 
Lucy Bruce, Keene. Irene Call. Eliza Cole, Stillwater. 
Martina Ann Cole, Mary Cole, Roby Cole, Marietta Clark, 
Julia Clark. Pamelia Clark, Mary Cutting, Mahala Drake, 
Sophronia Drake, Mary Ann Ferris, Pamelia Finny, Anna 
Finny, Betsey Fisher, CynihiaFisher. MaryFoster, Moriah. 
Jane Agnes Flack, Willsborough. Mariah Gibson, Spring 
Arbor, Mich. Mary Gould, Essex. Emily P. Gross, 
Keeseville. Mary A. Hammond. Jane E. Hammond. Phebe 
F. Hall, Jay. Eunice Hatch, Mary Ann Henderson. Mari- 
etta Hickock. New Haven, Vt. Sybil Agues Hagar, Middle- 
bury. Vt. ElviraHenderson.ElmiraHolcomb. NancyM. How- 
ard, Moriah. Sary M. Howard, Benson, Vt. Betsey Isman. 
Caroline Isman, Essex. j^ ugusta M. Kent, Catharine 
Kent. EstherKetchel, Essex. Catharine Low, Lewis. Isa- 
bella G. Mead, Jane M. Mead, Sarah Mead, Sylvia Mer- 
riam, Essex. Mary F. McLeod, Betsey Morse, Louisa 
Morse. HarrietNettleton,Jay. Mary Ann Parkill, Essex. 
Caroline E. Peck, Keeseville. Esther P. Ranney, Eliza 
Ann Reynolds, Anna Jane Reynolds, Clarissa Richards, 
Cathaline Rising, Sarah Ann Rust, New York City. 
Samantha Sawyer, West Haven. Vfc. Christeen Shelden, 
Essex. CarolineSpencer, Harriet Spencer. Eliza Sprague, 
New Haven, Vt. Esther Stafford, Essex. Annia Stearnes, 
Elizabethtown. Jane A. Stoddard, Bui'lington, Vt. 
Celia Stone, Clintonville. Jane E. Stow, Keeseville Al- 
mira Sturtevant, MariahSturtevant. Harriet Tarbell, Mo- 
riah. Jerusha Young, Sarah Young. Elnorah Whallon, 
Charlotte Whallon, Essex. Rebecca Wyman, Schroon. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 387 



Primary School. 

Males, 25. Females, 15. 

Recapitulation. Male Dept., 91. Female Dept., 77. 

Primary School, 40. Total 208. 
Attending 1st Term, com. 1st Monday in Jan., 124. 

2nd " May, 101. 

3rd " Sept., 111. 

Average per Term, 112. 

Tuition per Quarter, for the Common English 
Studies, $3.00 

For the Languages and Higher Branches, $4.50 

Music with use of Piano, $10.00 

Chemical Lectures, $3.00 

Charles Hatch, President of the Board of Trustees. 
Aaron B. Mack, Secretary. 

The Principal, Orson Kellogg, graduated from the 
University of Vermont in 1823, having entered from 
Elizabethtowu, N. Y. He remained at the head of the 
Academy for eight years, presiding over the busy hive 
of the boarding house, and is remembered as exceed- 
ingly efficient in every capacity. From Westport he 
seems to have gone to New York, where he taught 
school for a number of years, and died there in 1853. 

Following Mr. Kellogg as Principal was William 
Higby, of Willsboro, whose name appears as a student 
in this year's catalog. He graduated from the University 
of Vermont in 1840, and practiced law. When gold was 
discovered in California he joined in the rush to the 
Pacific coast, in 1850. He became District Attorney 
of California, District Judge, went to the State Legisla- 
ture, and to Washington as Congressman from 1853 to 
1869. He died at Santa Bosa, Cal., in 1887. 



388 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Another principal was a Mr. Bates, son of the Rev. 
Joshua Bates, president of Midcllebnry College. As I 
find that he had five sons, this is not very definite. 

Around the name of Emily Gross, the "Female 
teacher," cluster memories of the most engaging ro- 
mance. She was beautiful, talented, highly educated, 
beloved by all who knew her. She w^as daughter of 
that Ezra C. Gross to whom William Ray paid such a 
fiourishing compliment when he told Governor Tomp- 
kins the name of his fellow editor of the Reveille. Her 
mother was a Miss Fisher of Elizabethtown. Mi^x the 
death of father and mother she was adopted by Mr. 
and Mrs. Oliver Keese of Keeseville, and she was given 
"a finished education" by the Free Masons. She after- 
ward married a millionaire, or at least a very wealthy 
man, Mr. Ransom E. Wood, and one romantic incident 
of her life is that of her daughter's receiving the auto- 
graph of Prince Bismarck, after having been received 
at the court of Berlin. And now the beautiful Emily, 
who once smiled upon the half-grown boys and girls 
who flocked up and down our Washington street — the 
grandfathers and grandmothers of the present genera- 
tion — lies buried in an English church-yard, at 
Matlock, Bath, in Derbyshire, and there in the little 
church you may see a memorial window which com- 
memorates her virtues. Perchance some of our own 
girls who are now teaching school in Westport may, 
sixty years hence, have a like romantic story of beauty 
and good fortune for some chronicler to write down. 

Another teacher in the Academy was Miss Charlotte 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 389 

Holly Kitcbel, a sister of the Rev. Harvey Denison 
Kitchel, president of Middlebury College from 1866 to 
1873. She married the Rev. Daniel Ladd, a Congrega- 
tional minister who went as a missionary to Turkey, 
and in that foreign land she spent thirty-one years of 
her life, bearing five children while in exile. 

Other teachers, according to the memory of some of 
our old people, were Lucy Ann Clark, daughter of David 
Clark, Mrs. Farrar, Miss Ursula Kelley and a Miss 
Whittlesey, said to be a sister of the Rev. William W. 
Hickox, who built the stone cottage on the hill south of 
the village, now owned by Mr. Sherwood. 

Some of the girls whose names appear in this cata- 
log as pupils afterward taught in the Academy and in 
the district schools in town, as Mary Ann Hammond 
and Augusta and Katharine Kent. Sarah Young,daugh- 
ter of Alexander Young, had the great good fortune to 
finish her education at the Troy Female Seminary 
which Miss Emma Willard made so famous between 
the years 1821 and 1838. To attend this seminary was 
the height of every studious girl's ambition at this time, 
in this region. It was a place where girls learned no 
overwhelming amount of science or dead languages, but 
they did learn good manners and fine needlework. 
Beautiful embroidery Sarah Youug brought back from 
Miss Willard's school, and much of the delicate work 
of our grandmothers, still preserved in many of the old 
families, was done after the patterns used by Miss 
Willard's pupils. 



390 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Among the boys who became famous was William 
GreeDough Thayer Shedd who received the degree of 
A. M. from the University of Vermont in 1843, that of 
D. D. from Andover Theological Seminary, and of LL. 
D. from the University of New York in later years, was 
professor of Sacred Literature, Ecclesiastical History 
and kindred subjects at Andover, Auburn and New 
York, and published a long and heavy list of books on 
Philosophy of History, Dogmatic Theology, Doctrine 
of Endless Punishment, etc. John L. Merriam, in 
later years, went to Minnesota, was elected to Congress, 
and became Speaker of the House of Piepresentatives. 
His son became Governor of the State. Jonathan Tar- . 
bell was Pro^'isional Governor of the City of New Or- 
leans during its occupation by United States troops, in 
the Civil War. Edward Samuel Shumway went from 
Westport to Middlebury College, graduating in 1839, 
and spending the rest of his life as a lawyer in Essex. 

Judge James B. McKean of Saratoga, Member of 
Congress and first Cohmel of the 77th Regiment, N. Y. 
v., was at one time a student of this academy, as w^as 
also Captain Samuel C. Dwyer, of the 38th. 

The name of James W. Eddy shows that this family 
were now in town, probably coming not long before this. 
The father of James Walker Eddy and Charles Henry 
Eddy, afterward so well-known as business men in 
Westport, was Justin Eddy, who came from Kocking- 
ham, Vt., having previously lived at Saxton River, Vt. 
He was a lineal descendant oF that WilHam Eddy, Yi- 
car of St. Dunstan, Cranford, County of Kent, England, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 391 

who was the progenitor of so maay of the American 
Eddys. The Hon. Matthew Hale of Albany was also 
a descendant of the Vicar of St. Dunstan's. C. H. Eddy 
married Marietta Hickok, but J. W. Eddy remained a 
bachelor, and when he died left his property to his 
brother. 

The Lecturer "appointed for the ensuing year" was 
Dr. Evander W. Raoney, who had not then been long 
in town. He was the son of Dr. Waitstill Randolph 
Eauney of Townshend, Yt., a man very well-known 
throughoutVermont in those days,withthe versatile New 
England ability for doing many thing, and doing them 
all well. He practiced as a country doctor, being at 
the same time almost continuously in some public of- 
hce, rising gradually to be State Senator, and then 
Lieutenant Governor. He was also a farmer, and a 
successful one, as would appear from a remark made 
near the end of his life : "It was in a great measure 
through the products of the farm that I acquired the 
means of giving four of my sons a collegiate, and three 
others a medical education, at the same time laying up 
something for future necessities." As he had thirteen 
children, he might well have been proud of making 
professional meu of seven sons. Of the three who were 
doctors, two settled for a while in Westport,Dr.Evander 
W. Banney practicing here from 1835 to 1844, and then 
removing to New York, while his brother Dr. Henry D. 
Ranney succeeded to his practice here, remaining until 
1857. I think both of the Doctors Ranney lived on 
Washington street, in the house which has been occu- 



392 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

pied almost contiDuouslj since by succeeding doctors, — 
b}' Dr. Richardson, Dr. Barber and Dr. DeLano, and 
now by Dr. Holt. 

Dr. Evander was not the first Ranney in town, as his 
uncle Eleazar H. Ranney had been here at least since 
1824, living north of the bay, on the present John Brown 
farm. Eleazer Ranney and his family were faithful 
members of the Congregational church at Wadhams, 
and the church books show that they w^ent away in 1850. 
The father of Eleazar, an elder Waitstill, lived with 
him, died in 1839, and was buried at Northwest Bay. 
There was another brother of Dr. Evander who is 
known in Westport annals as *'Elder Ranney," being 
Darwin Harlow Ranney, who graduated from Middle- 
bury College in 1835, and came to Westport the same 
year, preaching in the Baptist church, and being or- 
dained to the Baptist ministry in August. He seems 
to have stayed no more than a year. He married Sybil 
Hale McKinuey, sister of Norris McKinney. 

1836. 

TowQ Meetiiitr held at Spencer's Hotel. 

John Chandler; iSupervisor. 

Diodorus S. Holcomb, Clerk. 

Gideon Hammond and Lewis Cadj, Justices. 

Ebeuezer Douglass, Isaac Stone and Calvin Angier, As- 
sessors. 

Marcus J. Hoisington, Collector. 

Newton Hays, Alauson Barber, John Greeley, Jr., Road 
CommissioDers. 

D. S. Holcomb, Aaron B. Mack, Abiathar Pollard, School 
Commissioners. 

Joseph R. Delano, Miles M'F. Sawyer, Enos S. Warner, 
School Inspectors. 



niSTORY OF w Ksrroj^T rn)3 

Hezckiah Btirbei* and Levi Frisbie. Poor Masters, 

Marcus J. HoisinoftoD. Alansoo Denton, John Stone, 
Seymour Curtis. Constables. 

Newton Hays. Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters.— Horace Ormsby. John Stone. Charles 
i'isher. Levi Frisbie, Amos Culver. Miles M"F. Sawyer, 
William Vial!. Isaac D. Lyon. E. H.Banney, Elijah An.i^ier, 
f^ieoriJfe W. Sturtevant.. Jason Bramau, Jason Dunster, 
Justin Prouty. .Benjamin Caldwell, John Lobdell, Johnson 
[fill, Tberon Slaughter. Gideoa Hammond. Joseph Stacy, 
Jr.. Horace Holcomb, Solomon Stock well. Wilson K. Low, 
.Vi(~^ses Felt, Joseph Farnam, George Skinner, Nathanj(>J 
Allen, George Vaughan. Jonathan Cady, Emory Mather. 

Adjourned to the Inn of H. J. Person. 

Speucer^s Hotel stood where the Glenwood Inn now 
-lauds, on the hill, at the junetiou of North and Pleas- 
lut streets. Alexander Spencer had been here sinee 
1826. There was a Dr. Spencer in this family, (which 
is not that of Victor Spencer, j who was a student in 
the office of Dr. Wright 

It was about 1837 that the Congregational church at 
Wadhams was erected, on the top of the hill just west 
'f tlie river. In those days it seems to have l>een al- 
most a rule that the churches should be built on the 
Jiighest hill-top available^ perhaps with an idea of let- 
ting their light so shine. The same thing may be oh- 
-f-rved of many of the school houses. Later, this church. 
like the Baptist church at the Bay, was moved to lower 
_;i'ound.Atsome timenotfar froml875,ons winter wheu the 
liver was frozen, the church members came together 
^ith horses and oxen and chaiiisg and serev^'s, and all 
thii'gs needful, and mov^d the church down the bank. 
;i)ou the ice, and jg.cross to the opposite side, JA-he^-e it 
'>w. stands. Thjs wa.s the onlv church edifice in Wad- 



3iM HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

hams until the Methodist Episcopal church was built in 
1893. 

This year Liberty street was first opened, its exist- 
ence up to this time having been only witnessed by the 
fast yellowing paper of the Ananias map. There was 
also another street, which has never yet received a name, 
thus described in the survey bill ; "Also one other road, 
beginning on the south side of Washington street, 
thirty-seven aud one-half links from the west end of the 
Essex County Academy in said village of Westport, 
running from thence south fifteen degrees, east nine 
chains and six links, until it intersects said Liberty 
street in said village. Said road to be three rods wide 
at least." Dated Westport, May 20, 1836, and signed 
l)y Diadorus S. Holcomb, Surveyor, and by the road 
commissioners of the year. 

The necessary permission from the owners of the 
land through which the new street was opened is thus 
oiven : "I am willino- that the above-mentioned road 
should be opened agreeable to the above-mentioned sur- 
vey bill, with such alterations to be made as I have 
suggested to Mr. Sawyer. It is understood that my 
father and myself are not to be at any expense in fenc- 
ing any part of said roads." Signed Piatt R. Halstead, 
May 31, 1836. Then further : "I hereby agree to build 
the fence on the side of the road adjoining the land now 
occupied b}^ John Halstead, or that which he has not 
released his claim to, mentioned or describe tl in the 
^Yithiu survey bill." Signed Miles M'F. Sawyer, who 



m STORY OF WKSTrORT :^0D 

jiiarriecl tlie daughter i\i Joliii Halstead, ai)d seems tc» 
have been carrviu^ on }iis land. 



1887. 

Towu Meetm<^ itt the Inu of H. J. Persons. 

Benajah P. Douglass, Supervisor. 

Diodorus S. Holcomb, Clerk. 

Charles Hatch. Calviii Aogier^ Joseph Hardy. Assessors, 

Seymour Curtis, Collector. 

Wiiliaiii L. Wadhanis, Justice. 

Isaac Alden. Grauville Stooe, Hezekiah Barber. Road 
Commissioners. 

•Miles iVf'F. Sawyer, Albert P. Cole. Jason Dunster, 
School Commissioners. 

Diodorus S. Holcomb. Orson Kellof^g. Asahel Lyon. 
.School Inspei^tors. 

Horace idolcomb and George B. Reynolds, Poor Masters. 

Seymour Curtis. John A. Hill, Erastus Loi^eland. Alan- 
son Denton. Constables. 

Enos S. Warner, Sealer of Weights and measures. 

Pathmasters.— Alvin Burt, Otis Sheldon, Charles Pjsli- 
er, Levi Frisbie, Lorrin Cole, Aaron B. Mack, William 
Viall, Isaac D. Lyon, Noel Merrill, Henry Royee. John 
Stevens, William L. W^adhams, John Lock. Joel Finney. 
John S. Stanton, Jared Goodall^ Harvey Smith, Albert 
Stringham, John Chandler. Henry Stone^ Frederick T. 
Howard, Charles Doty, Lee Prouty, Darius Merriam. Jos- 
i'\)h Farnam. St.ephen Sherman. William Olds, Erastiis 
Loveland, Jonathan Cady, Elisha Royce. 

Survey of a road in the Iron Ore Tract *'fr(%m a beech 
tree on the east line c*f Lot No. 47 to beech sapling in 
the south line of No. 7." This is a line exaujple of the 
hmdniarks often indicated by the early surveyors. 
Surely a beech sa]^ling was; not very satisfactory as an 
•pnduiing nionumeiit. The writer remembers a deed in 
which a (•ert.yjjj boundarv was made to depend upon 



396 HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 

the fence "around the five-acre lot that was sowed to 
corn last year." iVs the lot had been abandoned to the 
forest years before and was overgrown with a fine 
young grove of pine and hemlock at the time at which 
it was desired to transfer the land, it was necessary to 
supplement the documentary evidence with that of the 
memory of the Oldest Inhabitant. 

This is the year that Victoria was proclaimed Queen 
of England, and that in which Martin Van Buren was 
inaugurated President. At Shelburne Harbor was built 
the Burlington, the largest and fastest steamer yet seen 
on the lake, one hundred and ninety feet long, twenty- 
five feet wide and nine feet deep, with a speed of fifteen 
miles an hour. Her captain was Bichard W. Sherman, 
the famous "Captain Dick," of whom President Van 
Buren, often his passenger, said, "He imagines that all 
the world is the deck of a ship, and he the captain." 
It was upon the BiuiiiKjton that Charles Dickens passed 
through Lake Champlain on his American tour, five 
years after this. The old Fhenlx was just condemned, 
and for fifteen years the people in Westport saw the 
Burlington steaming back and forth upon the lake. Not 
yet were regular landings made in the bay, passengers 
going on board in a small boat, although the steamers 
stopped at the wharf at Barber's Point, and on that 
account it was common for those who wished to take 
the boat to go to the Point for the purpose. 

This year the Methodist Episcopal church was fin- 
ished and dedicated, the movement for its erection hav- 
ing begun three years before. The building committee 



HISTORY OF WESTPOirr H97 

was Dv. Diadorus Holcomb, Charles B. Hatcli and Levi 
Frisbie, and subscriptions were to be paid "one-fourth 
in cash and three fourths iu good merchantable neat- 
cattle, grain or iron." The house was about forty by 
sixty feet in outside measurement, and built of stone 
brought from Button Bay island, four miles away across 
the lake. At this time the Rev. Peter C. Oakley was 
presiding elder, and Lewis Potter and H. Stewart act- 
ed as circuit preachers. Two years afterward Westport 
was made a station, with John W. Belknapp as station- 
ed preacher, and soon after a parsonage was built, just 
north of the church. 

Iu the Baptist church ver}- important action was 
taken in the adoption of what they called "the temper- 
ance resolution." It ran as follows: 

"Resolved that we resolve ourselves into a temper- 
ance Church, so that any member of the church who 
shall use or traffic in, or promote the use of or traffic iu 
ardent spirits or wines as a beverage, shall be liable to 
labour by any member of the church who shall be ac- 
quainted w'ith the fact, and to exclusion in case of re- 
fusal to reform." It is evident that this resolution w'as 
not passed without some difficulty, as it had been under 
discussion since April, and it was at least six years 
since the national temperance movement may be said to 
have begun. There is no doubt that drinking habits 
were exceedingly prevalent in Westport as well as in all 
other places, as we know too well from accounts with 
which we are all familiar. It is startling to read the 
old church records, and note the large proi)ortion of 



398 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

cases of Ji'imkeuuess which came uucler the reproba- 
tion of the church, showing that conscientious people 
were laboring faithfully against overwhelming odds. 
There is a horrible story told of some one of the older 
offenders (but not a church member,) sitting at the 
table one night drinking, near the end of a prolonged 
period of indulgence, reaching for his bottle with his 
ai'iD close to the flame of the candle, and seeing a blue 
flame run up his arm as though the blaze had touched 
the surface of alcohol. It is added that the horror of 
the sight led t(i the drunkard's reforniatiou and wheth- 
er it be literally true, or invented by some one who had 
just read Dickens* ''Bleak House," in which the case of 
spontaneous combustion is so subtly and powerfully 
managed, the story goes to show something of the con- 
ditioiis needing reformation. When the Baptist church 
adopted the temperance resolution, the pastor was the 
Kev. Cyrus ^Y. Hodges, the church clerk Joel A. Gal- 
hoon, and the deacons Gideon Hammond and George 
B. Reynolds, 

183H. 

Town Meeting held at H. J. Persons. 

John Chandler, Supervisor. 

D. S. Holcomb, Clerk. 

Diodorus Halcomb. Justice. 

Barnabas Myriok, Alansoo Barber, Joseph R Delauo, 
Assessors. 

Seymour Curtis, Collector. 

Granville Stone, Hezekiah Barber. Jason Braman, Road 
Com niiss loners. 

Ira Henderson, Asaliel Lyon, William Frisbie, Scli,ci»ol 
Commissiaaers. 



rnsTOin^ OF WESTPni^T son 

David M. Sayre. J. R. Delano. Miles M'F. Sawyer. School 
Inspectors. 

Calvin Aut2fier and James W. Coll, Poor Masters. 

Se3^mour Curtis, Erastus Loveland, Alacson Denton, 
Constables. 

Sewall Cutting. Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Ralph Bigalow, E. H. Coll, Harry 'Cole. 
Xevvton Hays, H. J. Persons, William Viall, Jonathan 
Holcomb. Asahel Lyon. Luther Angier, George W. Sturte- 
vant. Eli Wood, David M. Sayre. Augustus Hill. Orrin 
Skinner, Joshua Slaughter, Johnson Hill. Leonard Avery, 
iohn Chandler, Alonzo Slaughter, James McConley, Eze- 
\iel Pangburu, Lee Prouty. Moses Felt. Joseph Farnam. 
Stephen Sherman, William Olds. Leonard Ware. Jonathan 
"ady, Jonn Stone, and Mr. Knights. 

In the drear}' obscurity of the descriptions of the road 
-urveys we catch such words and phrases as "theKing- 
lom," "the bridge on the Town Line east of Lobdell 
md Myrick's forge," "Storrs and Hatch's forge," with 
^ome locality unerringly determined by "the small 
brook southeasterly of Paddock McGuyer's house." 
The surveyor was Piatt R. Halstead. The Justices 
were Diodorus Holcomb, William L. Wadhams and Ira 
Henderson. The Member of Assembly from our dis- 
trict was Gideon Hammond. 

1838 was the year of the "Papineau War" in Canada. 
It was uo great conflict, but our town lay near enough 
to the frontier to share a little of the excitement, and 
renewed attention was paid to militarj' matters. The 
militia trainings had fallen somewhat into neglect, but 
now behold our martial youth once more arrayed for 
conquest, and formed into an artillery company, of 
Ahich Asahel Lvon was the captain, wdiile Harry J. 
Person was colonel of tlie regiment. The general mus- 



400 U J STORY OF WE ST PORT 

ter was at Lake Oeorge at this time. The Westport 
compau}^ consisted of thirty or forty meii, but the ouly 
names given me ai'e those of Edmund J. Smith, James 
A. Allen and Edwin Person, son of the colonel. They 
were never called forth to fight, and so never became 
famous, but they owned a real cannon, probably the 
first one seen in town since Gov. Tompkins ordered 
cannon sent in to the arsenal at Pleasant Yalley by way 
of Northwest Bay, This piece of ordnance figured afe 
celebrations for many yeai-s afterward, and at last burst; 
in an excess of enthusiasm on some Fourth of Juh^ 

Before the Canadian troubles were settled. Gen. 
Winfield Scott was sent into Canada by our government 
to iiiquire into matters a little. He went north in the 
winter, by tlie line of stages which Peter Comstock hail 
early established between New York and Montreal, and 
passed through Westport, stopping at H. J. Person's 
hotel. This, o.f course, was a great event, and it is to 
l>e luxped that there was not a bo3^ in the village who. 
had not sutfi^cient spirit to try to get a look at the fa- 
mous general. Among the many stories of this j>eriod 
in regard to. the sympathy felt with the rebellious col- 
onists among a people who had within twenty-five years 
fo,uglit with England themselves^ is one which Mrs. 
William G. Hunter told me, (fifty years afterward,) of 
the driver bringing his sleigh around to the door for 
the General to resume his Journey to Canada, and ob- 
serving that it seemed unnaturally heavy. On examin- 
ation it was found tliat muskets had been packed in the 
bottom of the sleii^h and covered with the butt'alo, ro.be Si 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 401 

by some Cauadiau sj-mpathizer, wbo intended thus to 
send them across the hne to the insurgents. Mrs. Hun- 
ter added that there was no reason for believing the 
story, which was probably invented long after Gen. 
Scott had disappeared upon the snowy horizon, but 
that it showed the kind of fiction which was then 
popular among the groups of men who lounged 
around the stove in the bar-room or the store. 

This was the year in which the Hunters first came 
from Boston, bought land on North Shore and built the 
house at Hunter's Bay which was burned in 1875. Wil- 
liam Guy Hunter was born in 1798, and was therefore a 
man of forty when he came to Westport. He had been 
a sergeant in the war of 1812, and had afterward spent 
three years at the West Point Military Academy. His 
father William Hunter, had fought in the Revolution, 
sharing in the retreat from Quebec in the summer of 
1776, and thus being the first of the family to see our 
North Shore, as he passed it in the Continental army. 
His father, David, was the son of Jonathan Hunter, who 
came from England to America in the earlier years of 
the eighteenth century, and married Hopestill Hamlin, 
of liochester, Mass. 

Doubtless the first attraction to the place for Mr. 
Hunter was the residence here of his elder sister, Mrs. 
Sewall Cutting, who had come with her family in 1823. 
Another sister, Mrs. Aiken, came soon afterward. Mr. 
Hunter soon became one with the country people, took 
an active part in public affairs, and was, after a few 
years, elected supervisor of the town. Many stories of 



402 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

his words and wa^'s are still told, and such was his 
fame as a conversationalist that a myth-making process 
has now begun, attributing any witty or shrewd remark 
which is recognized as especially applicable to West- 
port or to Westport people, to Mr. Hunter. In this 
way some apocryphal tales are told, but one saying of 
his we can vouch for as authentic, made in reference to 
some man his opinion of whom had been asked. "Well," 
said Mr. Hunter, "in the sight of man he passes for a 
pretty straight, upright kind of a fellow; in the sight of 
God I am afraid he wiggles a little." This has the true 
Hunteresque flavor — something which no oneelse would 
ever have thought of saying. 

Mr. Hunter's wife was Elizabeth Wilson, who was 
only twenty-three when they came to Westport. Her 
sister Sarah, six years younger, soon visited her, and 
was accustomed to ride about the country- on horse- 
back. She often told of her first meeting with Louis 
Agassiz, the great naturalist, in the solitary- road which 
pierces the forest of North Shore, and of his astonish- 
ment at meeting there a young girl on horseback, en- 
tirely unattended. He was then not long from Switz- 
erland, and had come from Cambridge to visit Mr. 
Hunter. Miss Sarah Wilson afterward married Col. 
Francis L. Lee, of Boston, whose father was a wealthy 
East India merchant, and it was in 1848 that they built 
their summer home on a hill north of the Bay, over- 
looking a glorious view of the lake and mountains, and 
called it Stony Sides. 

It was in 1838 that David Turner, then in the news- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 403 

paper office at Keeseville, tells of a visit to Elkanah 
Watsou at Port Kent. 

"It was here the writer of this narrative had the 
honor to visit this venerable man at his fine stone man- 
sion, and listen to his description of events from the 
Revolutionary war up to that time ; his journey to 
France and London, and the story of Copley painting 
his portrait, which then hung on the wall before me. 
It was here I met the then President of the United 
States, Martin Van Buren, John, his son, Henry Clay, 
Governor Silas Wright, and other prominent men of 
that da}^, who had called to pay their respects to the 
distinguished agriculturist and philanthropist. He had 
then reached his eightieth year." 

This gives an interesting glimpse of the people who' 
might be met on the passenger steamers and packet 
boats of the lake and the canal, in the leisurely jour- 
ney from the waters of the Hudson, Many stories are 
told of the pleasure of these journeys, and their social 
possibilities, which were akin to the opportunities of- 
fered by a voyage at sea. Martin Van Buren, —the 
little Magician, the Fox of Kinderhook, — often made 
the trip from his mansion at Kinderhook, on the Hud- 
son, to Lake Champlain, and was often the travelling 
companion of the Hunters. He was then a widower 
past fifty, a man of wealth, a successful lawyer and pol- 
itician, who looked on the world from the President's 
chair. It is said that Miss Sarah Wilson might have 
become Mrs. Martin Van Buien if she had not preferred 
to become Mrs. Francis L. Lee. 



404 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

It was this year that navigatioD on the lake was fa- 
cilitated by the erection of the first light-houses, at 
Cumberland Head and Split Kock. 

It seems to have been at this period that the first in- 
vestment of Boston capital in Essex county iron mines 
was made, as this year the Cheever ore bed, then al- 
most entirely undeveloped, was sold to Mr. Horace 
Grey of Boston. From this time until after the war 
the property was in the hands of, as Watson says, "an 
incorporated organization composed of gentlemen of 
affluence residing in Massachusetts." 



1839. 

Town Meeting held at the Inn of H. J. Person. 

Benajah P. Dou^'lass, Superviso!-. 

Franklin H. Cuttinor, Clerk. 

John H. Low, Justice of the Peace. 

Piatt R. Halstead, John Chandler, Joseph Hardy, x\sses- 
sors. 

Seymour Curtis, Collector. 

Alanson Barber, H. J. Person, Jason Branian, Road 
Commissioners. 

Ira Henderson, Aaron B. Mack, William L. Wadhams, 
School Commissioners. 

D. S. Holcomb, Evander W. Ranuey.D. H. Sayre, School 
Inspectors. 

James W. Coll and Calvin Anofier, Poor Masters. 

Seymour Curtis, J. F. Brush, Henry Stone, E. H. Coll, 
Sewall Cutting, Constables. 

James Walker Eddy, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Appollos Williams, Jr., Otis Sheldon, 
Samuel Root, Tilliugbast Cole, Cyrus Richards. Harvey 
Pierce, Barnabas MyrickDiodorus Holcomb. Eleazer H. Ran- 
uey, James Marshall, GeorgeW.Sturtevant, Eli Wood, Jason 
Duuster, Joel K. French, George bkinner, Nathan Slaugh- 
ter, Ephraim Bull, Jr.. E. B. Nichols, John Chandler, 



HISTORY OF WEsrroirr 405 

William Stacy, William Perkins, Solomon Stockwell, John 
Lewis, Jr., Moses Felt, Joseph Far nam, Joshua Slaugh- 
ter, B. P. Douglass, Erastus Loveland, Jonathan Cady, 
John Stone, James Bartlett. 

In December of this year Charles B. Hatch was ap- 
pointed Town Clerk in place of F. H. Cutting, who had re- 
signed. 

lu the summer of 1839 the Baptist church was moved 
from the top of the hill on Washington street to the lot 
upon Main street upon which stands the present edi- 
fice. This lot had been owned by the church since 
1836, and it is evident that there had been from that 
time an intention to move the building upon it, since 
the house had never been finished where it first stood. 
After it rested upon its new foundations, close upon the 
street, new floors were put in, with sixty.-four pews, 
which according to the custom then prevailing, were 
rented for a fixed sum each. The building was painted 
white, with green blinds, and as it was a large square 
house, with a large square belfry at one end of the roof, 
it was gazed upon with intense satisfaction by every 
one who had had a hand in its construction, as a per- 
fect example of the most recent and approved ideas of 
ecclesiastical architecture. The pulpit stood on a high 
platform at the western end, and the choir sang in an 
alcove opposite. No doubt at. first the cus- 
tom of the audience facing about with faces to the choir 
and backs to the minister while the hymn was being 
sung, may have been followed, but was given tip in-the 
next generation. There was a large basement for prayer 
meetings and Sunday school, and the new church was 
at once tlie center of a busy social life. Two hundred 



406 



If IS TORY OF WESTPORT 



aiul tweiity-seveii meoibers were reported this 3'ear to 
the AssociatioD, a number which has never since been 
exceeded. The pastor at this time was the Rev. C3^rus 
W. Hodges, the church clerk William J. Cutting, and 
the trustees elected since 1830 w^ere Caleb P. Cole, 
Norris McKiune}', Calvin and Elijah Angier, Evander 
W. Ranney, William eT. Cutting, Alexander Young and 
Aaron B. Mack. That the M. E. church was also in a 
prosperous condition is shown by the fact that this year 
the first statioued preacher was assigned to the place, 
the Rev. John W. Belkuapp. Measures were taken for 
buildiug a parsonage, which were coosummated some- 
what later. 

Just coming into use was a new invention, that of 
made envelopes into which letters were put before they 
Avere sent. Up to this time a part of the education of 
every child in an educated family was the intricate 
folding of a written letter so that a blank space should 
be presented on the outside upon wdiich to write the 
address. Postage was still so high that letters were a 
luxur}^ unless an absolute necessity, and with the new- 
fashioned envelopes, sealing wax was used for closing 
them. Steel pens had been invented about ten years 
before this, but were by no means in common use. 

This year Cyreuus Rockwell Payne came to Wad- 
ham's Mills from Brookfield where his father, Joseph 
Payne, had settled in 1807. He opened a shoe shop 
and afterward built the brick house which is still owned 
in the family. His first wife was Eliza French, daugh- 
ter of Joel French, and their children were : Orrin, who 



HISTORY OF WF ST PORT 407 

died at the age of sixteen. Delia, married Judd Sayie, 
uow of Iowa. Joel Osborne, who lived in Wheeling, 
West Virginia, and amassed a large fortune, dying in 
1890. Seward Quincy, now living in South Dakota. 
Daniel Safford French Payne has always lived at Wad- 
ham's Mills, carrying on the mills and forge for many 
years, and doing a large business in iron and lumber. 
The second wife of Cyrenus K. Payne was Mrs. Lucinda 
(Boutwell) Stone, and their children were twin daugh- 
ers, Lucinda and Cornelia. 



1840.. 

Town Meetint^ at H. J. Person. 

Barnabas Myrick. Supervisor. 

.Tames W. Eddy, Clerk. 

Ira Hendersou, Justice. 

Joseph R. Delano, Aaron B. Mack, Levi Prisbie, Asses- 
sors 

Guy Stevens, Collector. 

Samuel Storrs, Otis Sheldon, William Viall, Road Com- 
missioners. 

Asahel Havens, David FT. Say re, Albert P. Cole, School 
Commissioners. 

.4. M. Olds. Joel K. French, D. S. Holcomb, School In- 
spectors. 

James W. Coll and Stephen Sayre, Poor Masters. 

Guy Stevens, Jared Goodell, Seymour Curtis. L. W. 
Pollard, Constables. 

Charles Hatch, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Joseph Biofalovv, E. H. Coll, James W. 
Coll, John Ferris. David Ro^^ers, Charles Hatch, Barnabas 
Myrick. Asa Loveland, Smith Moore, Henry Royce, Geor^/e 
W. Sturtevant, Horace Holcomb, Benjamin Hardy, Joel B. 
Phiuney, Jason Bramau, Charles Cady, Johnson Hill, 
Leonard Avery, Lnther B. Hammond, Charles Stacy, AKin 
Burt, Solomon Stockwell. Lee Prouty, Abram Sherman, 



40S ins TORY OF WESTPORT 

Calvin C. Angrier, William P. West, B. P. Doutrlass, George 
Vaughan. Jobu Lewis, Jr., John Stone, James Bartlett. 

This year Piatt R. Halstead surveyed "a private road 
for William Guy Hunter," from corner lot No. 1, Taylor 
and Kemble, ''to the cleared fields.'' 

Another road began '"on the lake road south of the Ore 
Bed House, running fifty links easterly of the north point 
of a ledge of rocks there, due north to Joseph Ormsbees 
south line," to "an east and west road." Abraham Stone, 
Surveyor. There was an alteration of a road ''leading 
from the Congregational meeting house at Wadham's 
Mills to the road leading from North West Bay to Pleasant 
\'alley." Joel K. French, Surveyor. 

The Dame of Abram Slierman among the pathmas- 
ters recalls the fact that this family had not been long 
in Westport. Humplirey Sherman, father of Abram, 
was born in White Creek, AYashington county, in 1780, 
and probably came into Essex county early in the nine- 
teenth century. His brother Nathan, progenitor of the 
Moriah Shermans so closely connected with the liistorj' 
of the Moriah iron mines, was elected the first town 
clerk of Moriah in 1808, and it is likely that Humphre}' 
Sherman came into Brookfield at nearl}^ the same time. 
He married Anne Reynolds, born in Dutchess county, 
a sister of Abraham Reynolds, "the patriarch of Brook- 
field." Their children were : 

1. Morris, married Louise Dunster; children, Ellerv 
and Carroll. 

2. Humphrey, married xMary Hardy; cliildreu, Har- 
vey and Hardy, Walter. 

3. Abram, married Eliza Smith ; children, Abram, 
George, Frank, Alfred, Eliza, Emma. 

4. Charlotte married a Pomeroy. 

5. Christiann married Morrill Gibbs. 



HISTORY OF WKsrrojrr 4()u 

6. Titus George, married Partlienia, danglitev of 
Thomas Sheldon of Essex. He was commissioned En- 
sign in 1840, Lieutenant in 1842, and Captain in 184H, 
of the 37th regiment, N. Y. S. M., CoL John. L. Mer- 
riam; 40th Brigade, Gen. William S. Merriam. A son 
of Captain Titus Sherman, Henry Douw, married Sally 
Maria Whitue}^ daughter of Lucius AYhitnev of Essex. 
Tlieir daughter Cora, born in Essex, Aug. 15, 1809, 
married at Essex, Nov. 15, 1870, Henry Harmon Noble, 
born 1861^ son of Harmon Nobieof Essex. Their chil- 
dren, all born in Essex, are : 1. John Harmon, born 
Sept. 6, 1888. 2. Laura Anne, born October 25, 1889. 
;;. Katherine Euth, binm Oct. 2, 1892. Mr. Henry 
Harmon Noble has been employed in the office of the 
State Historian at Albany since Sept. 4, 1895 ; Chief 
Clerk since March 1, 1900. Another son of Capt. Titus 
Sherman is Adelbert, married Susan Coll. 

There were other Shermans in Westport, living in the 
-outh part of the town, much earlier than this family 
i)f Humphry Sherman, but I have not been so fortunate 
•IS to find any one who could name unto -me their gen- 
latious. In 1815 our Stacy brook is called in the town 
vcords "the Sherman brook," doubtless after a man 
who lived near it, and afterward we find Elijah, Hollis 
md Stephen Sherman named. 

This year Archibald Pattison came froai Washington 
county and settled on the lake road, on Bessboro, re- 
moving in later life to the village. His wife was Me- 
liitable Pratt, and they had four sons. 

Israel married Eleanor Coll, dau<j;hter of James W. 



410 HI STORY OF WE ST PORT 

Coll. George married Catherine, daiigliter of Andrew 
Frisbie. Charles married Jane, daughter of Col. Sam- 
uel Root. AVarren married Hattie^ daughter of Fred- 
erick Kinney. Sarah, an adopted daughter, married 
Hosea Howard. 

The "hard cider" campaign of Harrison this fall was 
characterized by so many excesses that a strong reac- 
tion set iu in favor of the temperance reform movement, 
which from this time forward gained steadily in strength. 

In a history of navigation on the lake published in 
the Vermont Historical Magazine, the term of service 
of Phineas Durfee as steamboat pilot is given as from 
1825 to 1840, therefore he probably retired to his home 
in Westport this year. He was one of the best pilots 
on the lake, serving with Captains Sherman and Lath- 
rop, and it was said that no eye was so keen as his in 
darkness or fog. A story is told of one foggy night 
wheu the regular pilot became bewildered, and con- 
fessed that he did not know which way to steer. Captaiu 
Lathrop knew that Phin Durfee was on board, asleep 
in his berth, and had him called. Durfee iustautly took, 
the wheel, turned the steamer half way around andlj 
rung the bell to go ahead with the most perfect confi- 
dence, saying that they were only a little way out ofl] 
the channel near Isle la Motte, which proved to be the 
case. He died in the house of James A. xlUen, and his-l 
watchers still remember that after his death his eyes 
refused to close in spite of all their efforts, seeming to 
the last still fixed in an effort to pierce that darkuess> 
which covers the waves of eternitv. 



•I 



iiisroin' OF }yKS'ri*<)}rr 4n 

Sylvester Young first came in 1840. His ancostrv is 
most unusual and interesting. Nine Dutcli brothers 
came from Holland to the Hudson river before the Hev- 
olution. When unmistakable signs of the times indi- 
cated the near approach of that conflict, they, having 
no decided S3'mpathies with either side of the ipiarrel, 
removed into Canada, and settled at Novan, province 
of Quebec, on Mississquoi Bay. Tlie father of Sylves- 
ter was Jacob. After Sylvester Young came into town 
he engaged in clearing wood from the land of William 
Ouy Hunter on North Shore. In 184*2 he married 
Eliza Angier, eldest daughter of Calvin and returned 
to Noyan, P. Q., remaining there a year, living in Essex 
six, and returning to Westport in 1849. Sylvester 
Young was long a prominent member of the Congrega- 
tional church at Wadhams. His daugliter Mary mar- 
ried Henry Eastman, and their children are Lizzie, now 
Mrs. Adams, Sylvester, Mary and George. Miss Mar- 
tha A'oung has been of the greatest assistance in giving 
information about the families of Young and Angier, 

Another family coming in from Canada, though some- 
what previous to this year, was that of Warren Gibbs. 
His wife was Abigail G Morrill. They settled in the 
north-eastern part of the town, in the neighborhood 
kiK)wn as "Angier Hill," on the Yine place, in the house 
which was burned in 1900. In tlie census taken this 
year, (1840,) the family of Warren Gibbs, consisting of 
himself, his wife, fourteen children, and an aged parent, 
bore the distinction of being the largest in the county. 
He and his sons were skilled masons, and much of the 



412 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

finest work in town was done by their hands. These 
are the family names : 

1. Lucy, married Artemas S. Hartwell. 

2. Morrill, married Christiann Sherman, 

3. Hiram, married Melissa Lock. 

4. Milo, married Mary Estey. 

5. Lorenzo, married Mary Ann Angler. 

6. Abigail, married Orson Bennett. 

7. Orange, married Mahala Morrill. 

8. Emmons, drowned in California when a yoimg 
man. 

9. Jane, married Merlin Angier. 

10. Ann, married, 1st, S. K. Wells^ 2ud, Samuel 
Huntington of Burlington. 

11, Mary, married A. J. Howard of Burhngtou. 

12. Eliza, married B. D. Stevens- 

13, Nelson J., (born 1840,) married, 1st, Theresa 
Clark; 2nd, Jennie Eichards. 

(One child died as an infant, making the fiill numbjer 
fourteen..). 

Town Meeting held at the Inn of H. J. FeFsocv 

Joseph K. Delano,, Supervisor. : 

Dan H. Kent, Clerk. ' ; 

Joel K. French, J ustice. 

Henry Stone, Collector. 

Alauson Barber, Aaron R. Mack,. WH'liam Viall', Asses- 
sors. 

Jason Braman, Samuel Storrs. James W. Coll, Road 
Commissioners. 

C. F. Cady, San:i.u,el Root,. D. S., ^IcLeod^ School ComDjiis,- 
si.ouersv 



HISTORY OF wKsrrojrr 4ih 

A. M. Olds, John H. Low, Evander W. Ruunev, School 
Inspectors. 

John Greeley, Jr., and Albert P, Cole, Poor Masters. 

Harry N. Cole, John Lock, Henry Stone, Constables. 

Williairi iVJcIntyre, Sealer of Weio:hts and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Joseph Bigeiovv, Alpheus Stone, A. Pat^ 
tisou, Hezekiah Barber, Caleb P. Cole, William J. Cuttincr. 
Williana Mclntyre, John Mitchell, WilHam G. flunter, 
Luther An^^ier, Geor^re W. Sturtevant., W. L. Wadhan^s, 
Edward Colburn. Elijah Wrii/ht. Georc^e SkiDner. Willard 
Hartwell. Justus Harriss. Henry Draper, Piatt Sheldon. 
Charles H. Stacv. Thomas B. Lock, Rufus Barr, Giles 
Shurtlifif, Moses>elt, Morrill Gibbs, W. C. West, Reuben 
BrowQ, Erastus Lovelaod, John Ferris, Samuel Anderson, 
Jcbabod Bartlett. 

Voted that fifty dollars be raised for map or Town Plot, 

Now we come to something trnl}- id tereetiug— West- 
port's first newspaper. The first number was published 
August 4, 1841, by Anson H. Allen,* south of H, eL 
Person's hotel," and its name was '■'The Essex County 
Times and Westport Herald.'" The first p^irt oi the 
name seems to be a perpetuation of that of the Eliza- 
bethtown paper published for a short time bj B. W. 
Xiiviugston, but the second part is all our own. It was 

*Anson H AUen was born in PaiaUne, N. Y in iSog, learne/3 the printei-^s trade 

in Middleburv, Vt., and was in the Herald oMce in Keeseville in 18*7. In iS4o be 

took the census o£ KsseK,eounitv, and sortie experience of his in the wild hs-ck. 

country gave rise to the popular dog-g-erel cabled "Allen's Bear Fight/' tv/o lines 

of which ajsre. — 

"O God.j he cri^d in de p despair, 

If vou don't help me. donH help the bear !*' 

t<"rom 1S41 to iS+t he published the Essex County Tsik'S \n Wesiiport; afterward 

in Keeseville and Saratog'a, he published a monthly r^^lled ^^The Old Sfttler," 

<levoted to early stories of this regsion, of wteich it is a pity that so few now re- 

iin. 'WheK the Hunter house was burned, one loss which Mrs Hiicter deeply 

iiented was that of barrels of old papers^ with a coiKplete file of Allen's "Old 

S-'tler:' 

Although n« name but that of Anson H. Alien is given upon the paper, we 

iknow that David Turner w^as associated with him from the first, from the latter's 

«o\yj? .staten^jCDtiD a letter published in the EH/abetktown Posf a few ysars lxe£ofp 



414 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

a very respectable four-page sheet, as may be seen by 
the four or five copies which have not gone long ago to 
kindle fires. There have been preserved, and are now 
in Westport, four copies, from the years 1841-42-43 
and 1844, and the writer has examined another printed 
in 1843, owned by Mr. Henry McLaughlin of Moriah. 
The earliest number still preserved is dated Wednes- 
day, Oct. 13, 1841. 

The literary portion, made up of selected articles, the 
foreign news, brought across the ocean on the steam- 
ship Acadia., and the notes of national events, as the 
concluding scenes of the "Patriot War" in Canada, are 
not so interesting as the home advertisements. We 
notice in the Democratic nominations the name of James 
Walker Eddy for Coroner. The editor is indebted to 
Capt. R. W. Sherman of the stenmev Burl in r/ton for late 
copies of Boston, New York and Montreal papers. 
AVe find "ads" of five different business firms in the 
village of Westport. William and Cyrus Richards 
"would most respectfully inform the public and their 
friends that they still continue in business at their old 

his death: "In iS4i I kft KeeseviUe for Westport to assist Anson H Allen in the 
publication of that illustrious hterary production, T/ie Westport Timet, Here I 
remain eight years, then removed family and printing office to the countj' seat." 
David Turner was born in Hull, England, in 1S19, and first came into Essex county 
in 1S37, working in the printing office at KeeseviUe. From 1S41 to 1S49, as he 
says, he lived in \Vestport, then m Elizabethtown for ten years or more, moving 
about 1S60 to Washington, where he died in 1900, He had an especial fondness 
for the history and the legends of Essex countv, often writing articles upon such 
topics for the local press. His wife was Eliza I. Cameron, of Scotch descent. His 
son, Ross Sterling Turner, the Boston artist, was b irn in Westport June 27, 1S47. 
Three other sons are Byron Pond Turner, of the Civil Service Commission atr 
Washingt n, Jasper C. Turner 0$ Cleveland, and Louis M. Turner of New York, 






HISTORY OF wr.srroirr 4ir^ 

stand, the Douglass store." Tlie}' keep on liaud "a gen- 
eral assortment of Dry Goods, Groceries, Crockery, 
Hardware, Oils, Paints, (fee." William J. k Franklin 
H. Cntting announce that they "will hereafter sell upon 
tlie Cash and Short Credit System, and have fixed u|)on 
the following prices," which are chiefly interesting from 
the fact that they are expressed in shillings and pence, 
as two shillings and sixpence a gallon for molasses. 
They also offer cash for "smooth, fiat and square Bar 
Iron." Harve}' Pierce "feels grateful for past favors, 
and for so liberal a share of the public patronage, and 
would inform the citizens of Westport and its vicinity 
that he keeps constantly on hand a general assortment of 
Choice Goods, which he will sell a little Cheaper than 
his neighbors !" Eddy k Kent "are constantly receiv- 
ing a general assortment of Fancy k Staple Goods," 
among which are stone churns and "sad irons, "and will 
take "all kinds of country produce at the highest pri- 
ces." Another tirm, Kent k Felt, "continue to carry on 
the Hatting business at their old stand near the Bridge, 
and keep on hand a good assortment of well-made Hats, 
of the latest Fashion, which they would like to exchange 
for Sheep Pelts, Sheared and Palled Lamb's Wool, 
Hatting and Shipping Furs, and most kinds of Pro- 
duce." All show the prevalence of barter in trade, and 
the very editor himself advertises patent medicines for 
..ale! 

At Wadhains Mills, H. k J. Braman have a good se- 
lection of Dry Goods for the country trade, and a good 
assortment of Straw Bonnets, of different qualities ; 



416 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

also, Yariegated Cotey Hats and Hoods," which shows " 
that in those da3^s the women were not provided with a 
milliner to sell them head-gear, but went to the general 
store and asked to see the finery that the store-keeper 
brought home with him the last time he went south. 
It would seem that Wadhams was then the centre of 
fashion, for one Michael O'Sullivan declares that he can 
do Tailoring and Cutting "on the shortest notice and in 
the most satisfactory manner." 

That Charles B. Hatch was then Postmaster is shown ' 
by a long list of unclaimed letters then lying in the post 
office — a list longer than it w^ould have been if postage 
had not been so high and chargeable to the recipient 
of the letter. Daniel Rowley advertises that he has 
lost a small bay mare, strayed from the enclosure of 
William Olds, and Frederick B. Howard that he has a 
quantity of farm property for sale, "cheap for Cash, or 
at from six to twelve months for good endorsed paper 
payable at a southern bank. The pdrcliasers eyes in lie- 
It is fliap.'" Daniel M'Eachron says that five spring 
calves have strayed into his pasture in the north part 
of the town. There is an Admiuistrator's Notice of the 
estate of Levi Frisbie, deceased, signed by Sally Fris- 
bie, Willard Frisbie and Aaron B. Mack. 

The most delightful picture is suggested by the "ad'' 
which sets forth the advantages of the Ferry from West- 
port to Basin Harbor, "the superior Horse-Boat 
EAGLE, Capt. Asahel Havens," which has been run- 
ning three trips a day, starting out at 7 a. m., 10 a. m. 
and 3 v. M., but will ixoni the 15th of September make 



jiiSTORV OF wEsrroRr 417 

but two trips. "The peculiar situation of this Ferry, 
protected as it is by mountains, renders crossing safe 
and certain, even in the most boisterous times." Signed 
by C. B. Hatch and A. Havens. These horse-boats 
were common on the Hudson, and were propelled by 
side wheels, worked by a kind of treadmill in which 
two horses stood, continually walking nowhere, like the 
horse-powers which are now seen in connection with 
our thresh iu(]j machines. ' 

It was in November, the 16th, in a gale of wind, that 
the steam tug McDonoagli was wrecked in Button Bay. 
A canal boat had broken loose from the tow, and in the 
endeavor to pick her up the JIcDoiioui/h ran on the reef 
and never floated again. The engine was taken out and 
the hull abandoned where it lay. It is a little remark- 
able that the only two wrecks in the history of naviga- 
tion OQ L ike Champlain (so far a^ I knowj which were 
caused by steamers running aground occurred within 
sight of Westport, — the JIcDonoKgh in 1841 and the 
Chanqjia'ui in 1875. 

The oldest surviving book of the records of the Con- 
gregational church at Wadhams begins with the date 
Oct. 8, 1841, and ends Oct. 16, 1864. One of the first 
entries is that of the sacrament administered by the 
Rev. Cyrus Comstock, to whose labors, fifteen years be- 
fore, the existence of the church was mainly due. This 
year the pastor was the Rev. Charles Spooner, who re- 
mained thirteen years. The deacons were George W. 
Sturtevant and William L. Wadhams, and the church 
clerk, William L. Wadhams. Deacon Wadhams was 



418 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

church clerk coDtinuously until 1864, with the excep- 
tion of two or three years spent in California. The 
first babies whose baptisms are recorded in this book 
are George Harvey, son of Levi and Elisa Pierce, and 
Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John R. and Elmina Whit- 
ney. The membership at this time was one hundred 
and twenty-two. 

184^. 

Town Meeting at H. J. Persons. 

William Guy Hunter, Supervisor. 

Harvey Pierce, Clerk. 

Diodorus Holcomb, Justice. 

Newton Hays. Collector. 

Piatt R. Halstead, Calvin Angler, Alexander Stevenson. 
Assessors. 

Hezekiah Barber, Abram E. Wadhams, William Rich- 
ards, Road Commissioners. 

Wiliian:. VanVleck, Miles M'F. Sawyer, William L. 
Wadhams, School Commissioner. 

Orson Kellogg and Asahel Lyon, School Inspectors. 

Tillinghast Cole and Horace Holcomb, Poor Masters. 

Newton Hays, Jared Goodell. James Peets, Henry Stone. 
Constables. 

Horace Barnes, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters.— Apollos Williams, Otis Sheldon, Samuel 
Root, Andrew Frisbie, Lorrin Cole, Aaron B. Mack. Cy- 
rus Richards, Horace Barnes, James Marshall. Elijah 
Angier, George W. Sturtevant, George Kilmore, Stephen 
Sayre, Augustus Hill, David R. Woodrutf, Charles T. Cady, 
Ephraim J. Bull, Alan Slaughter, Leonard Avery, Daniel 
M. Howard, Dennis Stacy, Frederick T. Howard, Ezekiel 
Pangbourn, Julius Ferris, Moses Felt, Calvin C. Angier, 
Orrin Skinner, B. P. Douglass. Lester Wallace. Joseph 
Duntley, John Stone, Ichabod Bartlett. 

Voted to raise ten dollars to refund to Asahel Havens 
for counterfeit money taken by him as school commissioner. 

This is a pertinent example of the injury and incon- 
venience suffered b}^ the people from counterfeit money 



HISTORY OF WE ST r OUT 410 

aud notes from nusouod banks. From 1836 to 1863 
there were no hanks but State banks, and the laws, 
especially in the earlier part of this period, were inade- 
quate to prevent adventurers from pretending to estab- 
lish banks, aud putting in circulation notes which were 
entirely worthless. No wonder the people preferred to 
barter in iron and farm produce. 

Now we have another of our stories of adventure on 
the lake. If you seek for the romance of our history, 
you will ever find it upon the water. Talk with one of 
our old boatmen — there are no young ones, aud soon 
there will be no old ones either — and see their love for 
a sailor's life, just the same fervor found in an "old salt" 
of the sea shore, even though our waters are fresh and 
land always in sight. "I liked it better than 1 did to 
eat," said Mr. James A. Allen to me, telling me of the 
twenty-two years which he sailed the lake, as man and 
bo}^ in the years from 1832 to 1854, when 3'ou might 
see fifteen or twenty sail in the bay at any time. And 
then he told me a story of one of his first trips in his 
own boat, when he was twenty- three years old. He 
started out from St. John's with his cargo, bound for 
New York, and carrj'ing in his cabin a box containing 
five hundred Mexican dollars. His employers liked 
their money in Mexican dollars, upon which they ob- 
tained a premium in New York. Ralph Loveland, a 
young man of his own age, was sailing his own boat 
too, as his lather had done for years, the children grow- 
ing up half on ship-board, and knowing the lake as you 
know your own back yard. "One smutty night " as 



420 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Mr. Allen said, he ran ashore on Schuyler's island, and 
Loveland ran out from Burlington and helped him off, 
lightening his boat by taking on his deck load. Then 
she floated again and they sailed away, getting into 
Northwest Bay before morning, and when the sun rose 
they were tied up safe and sound at Hatch's wharf, and 
had turned in for a wink of sleep. Waking, they be- 
gan transferring the deck load from Loveland's boat to 
Allen's again, and while busily at work looked up to the 
top of the hill and saw all the village people passing by, 
dressed in their Sunday garb. Then it burst upon them 
that it was Sunday morning, a fact that their night of 
toil and peril had driven from their minds, and that 
they were "breaking covenant obligations" by perform- 
ing unnecessary labor upon the Sabbath. As Loveland 
was then a faithful member of the Baptist church, and 
Allen afterward a pillar in the same, they took the sit- 
uation seriously, and hastened to set themselves right 
in the eyes of the community. 

It is true that in those days the churches were ex- 
tremely watchful in regard to the daily conduct of their 
members. It was the time of numerous "church trials" 
for offences ranging in magnitude from a prolonged 
absence from the Sunday services to profanity, lying 
and drunkenness. These were in no sense "heresy tri- 
als," and the church never properly claimed jurisdic- 
tion over offences against the common law, but it was 
considered a plain though painful duty to take action 
upon every suspicion of unchristian conduct or incon- 
sistency. It will not require much reflection to con- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 422 

vince any person witli a moderate knowledge of human 
nature that the strict enforcement of this principle 
often led to most unholy warfare, to the perplexity and 
despair of well-meaning and conscientious people. 
Another generation has learned more wisdom, and the 
ancient church trials are things of the past. They make 
tedious and profitless reading, with sometimes a reve- 
lation of situations unspeakably humorous. For in- 
stance, one of the Baptist deacons was so unfortunate 
as to find great difficulty in living in peace with his 
wife. Now we leave it to any married man if this was 
not a dispensation sufficiently afflictive in itself, without 
having a solemn church committee of three or five long- 
faced brethren filing in at his front door with the in- 
tention of inquiring into the particulars. We of this 
generation should give thanks that, among other bles- 
sings, the New England conscience has become amel- 
iorated by the development of a keen and wholesome 
sense of humor. One word in our vernacular to I 
am inclined to trace directly to this period. Any per- 
son who had been obliged to undergo the examination 
of the church in regard to his or her conduct in any 
matter was J^aid to have been "church-mauled." It will 
be perceived that the very formation of the compound 
W'ord betrays a sympathy with the supposed ofl:'ender 
and a turning of popular opinion against the church 
tribunal. 

This summer there was a camp-meeting at Barber's 
point, in the woods near the lake, and again 'in two 
years it was held in the same place. This was as cou- 



422 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

venieat and accessible a spot as could be found, since 
preachers and people alwa3^s came from the Vermont 
shore as well as from this side of the lake, and the 
ferry boat was in great demaud. The line steamer also 
stopped at the Point regularly for several years after 
this. 

The great English novelist, Charles Dickens, visited 
America this year, and recorded his impressions of the 
country in "American Notes." His passage through 
Lake Champlain is thus touched upon. 

"There is one American boat — the vessel which car- 
ried us on Lake Champlain, from St. John's to White- 
hall — which I praise very highly, but no more than it 
deserves, when I say that it is superior even to that in 
which we went from Queenston to Toronto, or to that 
in which we travelled from the latter place to Kings- 
ton, or I have no doubt I may add, to any other in the 
world. This steamboat, which is c^Wediihe Burllncjtou, 
is a perfects exquisite achievement of neatness, ele- 
gance, and order. The decks are drawing-rooms ; the 
cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and adorned 
with prints, pictures and musical instruments ; every 
nook and corner in the vessel is a perfect .curiosity of 
graceful comfort and beautiful contrivance. Captain 
Sherman, her commander, to whose ingenuity and ex- 
cellent taste these results are soleh^ attributable, has 
bravely and worthily distinguished himself on more 
than one trying occasion ; not least among them, in 
having ^the moral courage to carry British troops, at a 
time (during the Canadian rebellion) when no other 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 423 

conveyance was open to them. He and his vessel are 
held in universal respect, both by his own countrymen 
and ours ; and no man ever enjoyed the popular esteem, 
who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better 
than this gentleman. ^ ^ * By means of this float- 
ing palace we were soon in the United States again, 
and called that evening at Burlington ; a pretty town, 
where we lay an hour or so. We reached Whitehall, 
where we were to disembark, at six next morning ; and 
might have done so earlier, but that these steamboats 
lie for some hours in the night, in consequence of the 
lake becoming very narrow at that part of the jour- 
ney, and difficult of navigation in the dark. Its width 
is so contracted at one point, indeed, that they are 
obliged to warp round by means of a rope. * '^ '^ 
After breakfasting at Whitehall we took the stagecoach 
for Albany, a large and busy town, where we arrived 
between five and six o'clock that afternoon." 

AVe have a copy of the Essex County Times for. Oct. 
5, 1842. On the editorial page we find an account of a 
Democratic convention wdiich met at Elizabethtown 
Sept. 28, in preparation for the coming election. Van 
Buren, Democratic, had just gone out, and William 
Henry Harrison, Whig, was now in. The delegates 
from Westport were Anson H. Allen, Harry J. Person, 
Orson Kellogg, Miles M'F. Sawyer, Piatt R. Halstead, 
Frederick B. Howard and Alpheus Stone. The dele- 
gate to the Congressional Convention was Piatt R. Hal- 
stead. 

The resolutions of the Elizabethtown convention. 



424 HIS TORY OF WFSTFORT 

drafted by Hon. A. C. Hand, are expressive of the po- 
litical situation. There is condemnation of "all at- 
tempts to sell Uncle Sam's wood lot to the Dutch, Eng- 
lish or Jews," a reference to "the short and confused 
ascendenc}^ of Whigism," and a prophecy "that we shall 
be troubled no more with Bankism, hard cider and coons 
for the next quarter of a century." "The Whig party 
have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. 
The people are saying to them, 'who deceives us once, 
'tis his fault; if he deceive me twice, 'tis mine.' " Our 
town committee appointed was Piatt R. Halstead, 
Harry J. Person, James W. Eddy. 

AVe are informed that the Westport Young People's 
Temperance Society will hold a meeting this evening 
in the Methodist church, and there will be an address 
• by AVilliam Aiken, Esquire. Also that the next Quar- 
terly meeting of the Essex County Temperance Society 
will be held in the Congregational church at Lewis, in 
October, and that Orson Kellogg is the secretary. The 
Eastern New York Anti-Slavery Society will hold a 
convention for the county of Essex at East Moriah, Oc- 
tober 13 and 14. Addresses by Elder Abel Brown of 
Albany and Elder D. W. Burroughs. 

Charles B. Hatch is still postmaster, and he gives a 
list of about twenty letters lyiag unclaimed. Ttia od- 
dest among these names is that of Dovalthy Hickok, 
and we notice an xlntoiue which shows that before this 
time the French Canadian names had come to be known 
in the village, 

Harvey Pierce "has just returned from New York 



HISTORY OF WKsrroirr f ^^-^ 

with a splendid assortmeut of Fall Goods. Black, 
Blue-Black, Invisible Green and Brown Broad-cloths, 
Sattinetts, Cassimeres, Pilot Cloths, Testings, Alpacca 
Cloths, Bombazines and Silks. Heavy stock of Gro- 
ceries, Liquors Excepted." 

Kent and Felt advertise the Hatting Business exactly 
as befora, and Eddy and Kent will sell Bonnet Silks, 
Eibbons, Flowers, and also Cauldron Kettles, but in 
another column we are warned of the dissolution of the 
firm of James W. Eddy and Dan H. Kent, Aug. 30, 
1842. The Cuttings and the Richardses advertise as 
before, and John H. Low announces "that he is determ- 
ined not to be undersold by any one, at his store two 
doors south of H. J. Person's Hotel." Hinkley Coll 
furnishes Lime at his Lime Kiln in the south part of 
the town. "Notes of most of the suspended Safet}" 
Fund and Red Back Bank Notes bought by William J. 
Cutting." Inquire of Barnabas My rick if you wish to 
buy the farm of James Marshall on the road to Essex. 
Geo. B. Reynolds is agent for E. Jewett of Vergeunes 
for receiving Wool to Card or Manufacture. $50 Re- 
ward will be given for information which will insure 
•conviction of persons who have committed various tres- 
posses in the yard and grounds now occupied by Sew- 
all Cutting. (This was the old Dr. Holcomb place, at 
the forks of the road, the place now occupied by Joseph 
Lord.) 

Abiathar Pollard is about leaving town, and ^'would 
inform the inhabitants of Keeseville that he will hold 
himself in readiness promptly to attend all who, in af- 



426 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

flictive Providence, may require his aid." And there 
is an Executor's Notice for the estate of John Chandler, 
deceased. 

It was in the summer of 1842 that Francis Parkman, 
the great historian, made his first trip through Lake 
George and Lake Champlain, accompanied by Henry 
Orne White, examining the scenes of the events of the 
early wars of America, and obtaining that thorough 
knowledge of the country which is so evident in all his 
works upon the history of this region. The next 
year he went again this way to Canada, collecting his- 
torical material at Quebec and other places, and passed 
through on a similar journey once more in 1877. When 
the Westport Library was opened, in 1888, he presented 
it with a complete set of his historical works, which now 
stands upon the shelves, one of the most valued posses- 
sions of the Library. His interest in this institution 
had been awakened by an account given him by Mrs. 
F. L. Lee of its history and its needs. 



1843. 

Town MeetiniJf held at the Inn of H. J. Persoos. 

William Guy HLunter, Supervisor. 

Cyrus W. Richards, Clerk. 

Anson H. Allen and Miles M'F. Sawyer, Justices. 

Benajah P. Douglass, Collector. 

E. H. Coll, Luther Angier^ Asahel Lyon, Assessors. 

Alvin Burt, Lorrin Cole^ Elijah Angier, Road Commis- 
sioners. 

Ira Henderson, William L. Wadhams, William Vaa 
Vleck, bchool Commissioners. 

William Higby and Orson Kellogg, School Inspectors. 

Tilli aghast Cole and Horace Holcomb, Poor Masters, 



Til STORY OF WEsrroirr 427 

Barnabas Myrick, Alexander Stevenson. Alanson Bar- 
ber. Inspectors ol" Election. 

B. P. Douglass. Erastus Loveland. JaredGoodale. James 
Peets, Horace Barnes, Constables. 

William Van Vleck, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — William Brooks, E. H. Coll, James Peets, 
Levi Frisbie, Albert P. Cole, Aaron B. Mack, William 
Mclntyre, Horace Barnes, James McKenney. Luther 
Angier, George W. Sturtevant. Titus M. Mitchell, David 
H. Say re, Augustus Hill, David R. Woodruff. Charles T. 
Cady, Johnson Hill, D. M. Nichols, Albert Stringham, 
Luther B. Hammond. Henrv Stone, John Ormlston, Forest 
M. Goodspeed, Julius Ferris, Humphrey Sherman, War- 
ren Gibbs. Leonard Taylor, B. P. Douglass. Leonar-d Ware. 
Jonathan Cady. James Fortune, Truman Bartlett. 

At a meeting of the board of Town Auditors convened 
at the Town Clerk's office in the town of Westport, on the 
iirst day of April, 1843, present: William G. Hunter. Su- 
pervisor, Cyrus W. Richards, Town Clerk, John H. Low, 
Ira Henderson and Anson H. Allen, Justices of the Peace, 
it was unanimously resolved that the Supervisor of said 
town pay over to Piatt R. Halstead the sum of fifty dollars 
heretofore raised to furnish a map of said town, whenever 
be shall have completed the map by making the allotments 
and the subdivisions of the different patents of said town, 
more especially the Bettsborough and P. Skeins Patent, 
to the satisfaction of said supervisor. 

Recorded this 3rd day of April. 1843. Cyrus Ricnards, 
Town Clerk. 

Was this map ever made? If so, what became of it? 
The present writer can find no trace of it except this 
€utry in the old Town Book. 

This year was the one set by William Miller for the 
End of the World. Mr. David Turner writes as fol- 
lows in regard to this remarkable delusion: 

"The Millerite fanaticism, that extended from 1839 
to 1843, tlie day fixed for the grand ascension of the 
saints to the realms above. At that time ever}' man, 
xvoman and child in Fauton, Tt.., was a firm believer in 



428 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Miller's doctrine. Every Sunday, and almost every 

week day, a camp-meeting was held in the woods on 

the lake shore, and on a still night, with an easterly 

wind, you could hear the loud singing from across the 

lake — 

''O Canaau, bright Canaan, 

I'm bound for the land of Canaan ! 

O Canaan it is my happy home, 

Tm bound for the laud of Canaan 1 

If you get there before I do, 

Just tell them I am coming too, 

For I'm bound for the land of Canaan !" 

I have been told that William Miller once preached 
his wild doctrine in the Baptist church in Westport, 
when it stood upon the hill where it was first built, but 
as the church was moved in 1839, and Miller had then 
but just begun his propaganda, I do not think it at all 
likely. He seems to have had very few followers here. 
Mr. Aaron Clark once told me that he knew of some 
people in town who were convinced by Miller's argu- 
ments, (drawn chiefly from the mystical figures in the 
Book of Daniel,) but he would not give their names be- 
cause he said they were all enlightened as to their er- 
rors before now, from which I guessed that they had 
all gone to another world, though not precisely accord- 
ing to the predictions of Miller. 

A copy of the Tunes for June 14 gives the card of 
Asa Aikens, Attorney-at-Law, and a notice- of the for- 
mation of a partnership between Charles Hatch and 
Harvey Pierce. John H. Low "has just received fash- 
ionable summer goods." The call for a meeting of 
school teachers at the Academy for the formation of a 



HISTORY OF WESrrORT 420 

Teachers' Association in Westport, signed by Orson 
Kellogg as Town Superintendent, shows that he is still 
principal of the Academy. 

In the Times for June 28 there is a long description 
of the recent celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
with an address by Daniel Webster, listened to by the 
largest crowd ever seen in this country," — 150,000 ! In 
the procession were two hundred Revolutionary sol- 
diers and twelve survivors of the battle of Lexington. 
As for our business men, the most important advertise- 
ment seems to be that of William J. and Franklin H. 
Cutting, who have purchased "store and wharf recently 
owned by C. B. Hatch, Esq." The copartnership be- 
tween William and Cyrus Richards is dissolved, and 
the business is continued by William Richards alone, 
w^hile on the other hand, a new partnership is just 
formed by Charles Hatch and Harvey Pierce. '"W. D. 
and B. F. Holcomb have opened a new tailoring estab- 
lishment one door north of Hatch and Pierce's store." 
Asa Aikens, "being a solicitor in Chancery, and Attor- 
ney and Couusellor-at-Law in all the courts of law in 
Yermont, will attend to legal business confided to him 
in the counties bordering on Lake Champlain." Kent 
has just received 328 palm leaf hats, and will sell 
"sawed Eave Troughs," and "Wash Tubs, Angier's 
make," as well as a variety of stoves. Edmund J. 
Smith* has just opened a blacksmith shop "one door 
south of his carriage shop." 

*We have five old resident families, ciaiming ao relation-hip with one another 
■of the honorable but frequent name of bmilh. The oldest of these is undoubttdiy 



430 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

The next meeting of the Teachers' Association for 
the town of Westport will be held at the Academy. 
Several short addresses will be delivered on the subject 
of education. William Higby, Pres. A. C. Rogers, 
Sec. Meetings of the Essex County Temperance So- 
ciety are still held, Dr. Samuel Shumway of Essex, 
President, Orson Kellogg, Secretary. The Annual 
Meeting of the Champlain Baptist Convention, with 
leave of Providence, will be held in Essex, July 5. C. 
W. Hodges, Sec. N. B. The Board of the Convention 
are requested to meet at Deacon Reuel Arnold's. 

Anson H. Allen, as Justice, allows himself a sly joke 
in advertising "Hymenial knots tied in good style in 
short order." Under "Marriages" we find two interest- 
ing events : "In this village, on the evening of the 22nd 
inst., by Rev. J. Thomson, Mr. xllonzo M. Knapp of 
Crown Point, to Miss Lucy A. Clark^ daughter of Da- 
vid Clark, Esq. xllso, on the 27th inst., by Rev. Mr. 

the Smith family at Wadhams, known to have been there before the war of 1812. 

Edmund J. Smith, of the well-known family of Smith street, Shoreham, Vt.,. 
came about i84o and opened a carriage and blacksmith shop near his house on 
Washington street. His wife was Emma Larrabee, sister of Mrs. Dr. Shattuck, 
and his children are Frank E. Smith, of the firm of Smith & Richards, and Mrs. C. 
A. Pattison. 

James A. Smith came from Brooklyn in 1S59, aiid made clay pijxjs at Coil's Bay. 
His wife was Marietta Munererte, and his children now living are Gabriel, Peter 
and Sarah, now Mrs. John Farnsworth. 

John E. Smith came from. Canada and settled on the Iron Ore Tract, on the road 
to Seventy-five. He was the father of William Smith, of John Smith the under- 
taker, and of Mrs. James Patten. 

Ira Smith was a shoemaker, and kept the toll-gate for a iong time. His son 
Arthar is a graduate of Cornelk L^esUe Smith,, brother of Ira, is a cajpenterj.now 
living on Pleasant s-treet. 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 4:U 

Hodges, Gilbert A. Grant, Esq., of New Market, N.H., 
to Miss Helen St. John Aikens of this place." 

On the eleventh of September was held the twenty- 
ninth anniversary of the Battle of Plattsburgh, at 
Plattsburgh. The President of the day was Col. David 
B. McNeil, formerly of Westport, and thatpart of the ex- 
ercises most interesting from the point of view of this his- 
tory was introduced as follows : "To our esteemed fellow 
citizen, Piatt R. Halstead, Esq., late a Lieutenant in the 
United States Arm}^ I assign the honor of placing mon- 
uments at the graves of Capt. Alexander Anderson, of 
the British marines; Lieut. William Paul, midshipman; 
William Gunn and Boatswain Charles Jackson of the 
British navy, and Joseph Barron, pilot on board Com- 
modore Macdonough's ship — all of whom fell in the 
naval engagement in Cumberland Bay, off Plattsburgh, 
Sept. 11, 1814. Joseph Barron, pilot, was personally 
known to Lieut. Halstead and myself, and was a man 
held in high estimation, for his intelligence and patri- 
otism, by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance." 
The account of the exercises goes on to say that "Lieut. 
Halstead in the discharge of the duties assigned him, 
erected the monuments at the head of the graves of the 
three lieutenants df the British uavj^ and proceeded to 
the grave of Joseph Barron, and as near as we could 
catch his remarks, spoke as follows : 'I take a melan- 
choly pleasure in erecting this monument at the grave 
of Joseph Barron, Commodore Macdonough's confiden- 
tial pilot I knew him well— he was about my own 



4S2 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

age — we were school-boys together — a warmer hearted 
or a braver man never trod the deck of a ship.' " 

It was about 1833 that Freeborn H.Page first came to 
Westport, from Hyde Park, Yt., where he was born in 
1824. His parents were Lorenzo and Polly (Matthews) 
Page. He opened a tin shop, and afterward a store for 
general merchandise, was for a time a partner of C. H. 
Eddy in this place and carried on a wholesale grocery 
business in Troy for a number of years. His first wife 
was Phebe Ann Viall, daughter of William Viall, and 
their children were Evelyn, now Mrs. Dan Holcomb, 
and Walter, who died at Bay City, Mich., in 1883. His 
second wife was 3Irs. Mary Hitchcock, daughter of 
William J. Cutting. Mr. Page's sister Clara married 
D. L. Allen. 

Another arrival fr.om Vermont was Judge Asa Aikeus,, 
with his family, from Windsor, as is apparent from the 
notice of Judge Aikens' law business in the Times, and 
the announcement of his daughter's marriage,, in June. 
One reason for their coming to Westport was the res- 
idence here of Mrs. Aikens' brother, William Guy Hun- 
ter, and of the family of her sister, Mrs. Sewall Cutting, 
who had died three years before. 

Asa Aikens was born in Barnard, Vt., Jan. 13, 1788, 
the son of Solomon and Betsey (Smith) Aikens. He^ 
entered West Point Nov. 30, 1807, and in the war of 
1812 was a captain in the 3^1st regiment, U. S. A. He 
graduated from Middlebai'y College, class of 1808, and 
practiced law in Windsor until his removal to Westport. 
From 1818 to 1820 he was in the Vermont Legislature. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 4H:i 

from 1823 to 1825 Judge of the supreme Court of Ver- 
mont, and in 1827 President of the Council of Censors. 
In 1827 and 1828 he edited the Supreme Court Re- 
ports. He published two law-books, "Practical Forms" 
in 1836, and "Tables," in 1846, after he had settled in 
Westport. The latter is doubtless the first book ever 
published by any one living in our town. He married 
his first wife, Nancy Ann Spencer, Jan. 24, 1809, and 
her children were Emma Jeromine and Julienne Ger- 
trude. His second wife was Sarah Hunter, married 
Dec. 4, 1814. Children : Villeroy Spencer ; Mary Eliz- 
abeth ; Helen St. Johns (Mrs. Grant); Augusta (Mrs. 
Dudley); WilHam Hunter ; Edwin Edgertou ; Charles 
Eugene ; Sarah Hunter (Mrs. Jacobson); Guy Hunter ; 
Franklin Hunter. Judge Aikens died in Hackensack, 
N. J., while on a visit, July 12, 1863, and his wife died 
seven vears later. 

1844. 

Town Meeting held at the Inn of H. J- Person. 

Franklin H. Cutting, Supervisor. 

William Van Vleck, Clerk. 

John H. Low, Justice. 

Asahel Lyon, Town Superintendent of Common Schools. 
This is the first election of sucn an officer, and probably 
marks tae date of the first election of trustees in the dif- 
ferent districts. We do not find the three "school com- 
missioners'" and the three ''school inspectors'" agaia 
elected as town officers. 

Diodorus Holcomb. Luther Ant^ier, Alexander Steven- 
son, Assessors. 

Elijah Angier, Hinkley Coll, Abram E. Wad hams, Road 
Commissioners. 

James W. Eddy, William L. Wadhams, Joseph K. Delano, 
Inspectors of Election. 

This is the first election of such officers. 



434 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Hezekiah Barber and Horace Holcomb, Overseers of the 
Poor. 

Benajah P. DougJass, Collector. 

B. P. Douglass, Erastus Loveland, Jared Goodale, Hor- 
ace Barnes, Constables. 

Henry H. Holcomb, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Joseph Bigalow, Elihu H. Coll. James 
Peets, Tillinghast Cole, Charles Fisher, Willard Frisbie, 
William Viall, James Marshall, Henry Royce, George W. 
Sturtevant, Abram E. Wadhams, John R. Whitney, Joel 
R. Whitney, Joel B. Finney, Curtis Pierce, Leonard 
Fisher, Jonas Vanderhoff, Alonzo Slaughter, JoshuaSmith, 
Jacob Decker, Daniel Nichols, Jesse Sherman, Solomon 
Stockwell, Lee Prouty, William P. Merriam, William Mar- 
tin, Lyman F. Hubbard, John Flinn, Artemas Hartwell, 
Joseph Duntley, John Stone, Truman Bartlett. 

Voted to raise ten dollars "to purchase a set of Weights 
and Measures for the use of the Town." 

Asahel Lyon failing to serve as Superintendent of Com- 
mon Schools Asa P. Hammond was appointed in his place. 

In consequence of the resignationof William Van Vleck,* 
Samuel C. Dwyer was appointed Town Clerk by three 
Justices, Miles M'F. Sawyer, Anson H. Allen and Ira 
Henderson. 

By this time the old militia training day had passed 
away, and its place had been taken by the mass meet- 
ings of the people called political conventions. This 
year saw the last campaign of the brilliant Whig lead- 
er, Henry Clay, and a grand Whig Convention was held 

*William Henry Van Vleck was the son of Mrs. Cathaline Post Van Vleck, a 
widow who resided in Westport from some time before 1S30 to her death in 1867. 
He married Elizabeth Whallon, daughter of James M Whallon, owner of the 
mills at Whallonsburgh, and they lived in ihe large brick house on the river bank 
(since used as a hotel) which is still sometimes called "the Van Vleck House," 
although the Van Vlecks moved to Washington more than a generation ago. 
Upon the death of Elizabeth his wife, William Van Vleck, married her sister Em- 
eline Whallon. Elizabeth Van Vleck, sister of William, married the Rev. 
Thomas Brandt, a Baptist minister who preached in Westport from 1S43 to 1849, 
and who is said to have been a descendant of Joseph Brandt, the famous Mohawk 
chief who fought for the British in the Revolution. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 435 

at the county seat in September, at which every town 
in the county was represented by a pictorial delegation. 
The display made by Westport is still remembered as a 
triumph. In a large car rode "twenty-six ladies, young 
and beautiful," as an eye witness reports, representing 
the number of states then in the Union, and each car- 
rying a flag with her state name upon it. The car was 
drawn by thirteen yoke of oxen, each with its own 
teamster, and with horns decorated with red, white and 
blue ribbous, while behind the car rose deafening music 
from fife and drum. The head teamster of all was 
Elijah Wright, a famous driver of oxen, theu more com- 
monly used than horses for farm work. To-day thirteen 
yoke of oxen cannot be found in the township. The 
car was a rude affair, and the roads very bad, even for 
that period, and the whole delegation took turns in 
w^alking part of the way, with the single exception of 
Joseph K. Delano, who was lame at the time, and rode 
in state in a rocking chair. Of the twenty-six young 
girls who took part in this ardent display of political 
enthusiasm three are still living in 1903. One was 
Mary Hardy, afterward Mrs. Humphrey Sherman, 
another was Louise Dunster, afterward Mrs. Maurice 
Sherman, and the third was a daughter of Alexander 
Whitney who went in disregard of her father's allegi- 
ance to the opposing party, the Locofocos, and who mar- 
ried George F. Stanton. 

Westport still has a newspaper, but its editor has 
changed. Its name is simply ''The Essex County Times,'' 
it is published Thursdays, and its editor is David Tur- 



436 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

nev. In politics it represents the Anti-Whig party 
whose name is still in process of formation, as is well 
shown by this phrase from the resolutions of a recent 
convention— "every republican who desires the pros- 
perity of the good old democratic cause." This con- 
vention had nominated Augustus C. Hand for Senator.^ 
It is announced that "the Democrats of Wadhams 
Mills will erect a Hickory at that place on Friday, Oct. 
4 The friends of Polk and Dallas, Wright and Gard- 
ner everywhere, are invited to attend," and there are to 
be distinguished speakers from abroad. There is also 
a call for three delegates from each town to meet at 
Elizabethtown "to nominate a candidate for Member of 
Assembly in the place of William G. Hunter, who de- 
clines." We know that the man who actually went to 
the Assembly from our district this year was Gideon 

Hammond. 

There is a note about the "Whitehali;-"this spa- 
cious and maguificent Steamer has again taken her 
place in the Line," Capt. G. Lathrop. And "it is said 
that the new Steamer building at Whitehall is to be 
called the Francis Saltus, in honor of a New York Mer- 
chant." Our postmaster is still C. B. Hatch. D. H. 
Kent has not yet changed the May advertisement which 
announced that he had just returned from the sout i 
with a full and complete assortment of Goods, "which 
range from "Balzarines, Parisiennes, Muslin de Lames 
and kid gloves" to plough points, wash tubs and wagon 
tires with a supply of Parlor, Cook and Bos Stoves 
"cast from the first quality Pig Iron, and warranted 



HISTORY OF WEST PORT 437 

against cracks for six months with good usage." There 
were still people who cooked over the primitive fire- 
places, though they were becoming very unfashionable, 
and all the stylish folks had theirs bricked up be- 
fore this time, with an ugly iron stove set in the mid- 
dle of the dear old hearth-stone which had been warm 
to the feet of so many babies as they sat before the 
open fire and toasted themselves before going to bed. 
Apropos of the subjects of stoves and cookery, it must 
have been about 1848 when Phebe Sawyer, presented 
by her uncle with a new gold dollar, chose to invest it 
in the most approved cook-book then known, that of 
Miss Catharine Beecher, in which full directions are 
given for cooking before an open fire, with crane and 
bake kettle and spider-legged frying-pan to be set in a 
bed of glowing coals. Cake was to be raised with eggs 
only, though directions are given for the use of "pear- 
lash," wdiich was usually made at home by burning a 
little pile of clean cobs on a newl}^ washed hearth, and 
then gathering up the pearly little heap of ashes. 

Returning to the columns of the Times, we find that 
Kent still makes Hats of the Latest Fashion, and that 
William J. and Franklin H. Cutting are in business as 
before. Horace and Jason Braman have "assigned 
their book accounts, notes and other effects to Piatt 
Sheldon," and Horace Braman wishes to let "the well- 
known Tavern Stand at Wadhams Mills." The firm of 
W. D. and B. F. Holcomb has dissolved partnership, 
but W. D. Holcomb will "continue to carry on the Tai- 
loring Business." John H. Low is selling dry goods, 



43S HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

from Broadcloths to "Ladies^ Cravats, Fringes, Dress 
Silks, Hat and Cap Eibbons, with groceries, among 
which we notice "Lamp Oil," showing that the tallow 
candle was in a way to be left behind like the fire-place. 
The Port Henry Iron Works call for 3000 cords good 
hard wood and 50,000 bushels charcoal made from hard 
wood, at $1.75 per cord and 6 cts. a bushel. Signed F. 
H. Jackson, Treasurer Port Henry Iron Co. This may 
serve to explain what became of our forest primeval. 
Solomon Stockwell has lost a red two year old heifer 
with a slit in the left ear, but the most remarkable loss 
is that of Jacob Allen of Elizabethtown, who announ- 
ces indignantly that "on Sunday last an indented ap- 
prentice named Thomas Halfpenny" ran away from the 
subscriber. It seems that Thomas Halfpenny was an 
Irishman and "wore away a dark blue coat considerably 
worn, light coloured vest, blue cotton drilling panta- 
loons, a new fur hat and black velvet stock." 
There are two very interesting obituaries. 
"Died, at his residence in this village, after a long 
and painful illness, on the 30th ult., the Hon. Barnabas 
Myrick, aged 49 years. Mr. Myrick's loss is a pubhc 
calamity. He was one of our wealthiest, most enter- 
prising and useful citizens. For many years he has 
been identified with the prosperity of our flourishing 
village, and been foremost in its advancement, having 
filled many offices of trust with honor and ability, 
among which was the representation of this county in 
the State Legislature. Bat he is cat down in the midst 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 439 

of his clays, leaving a lovely family and a large circle of 
acquaintances. 

"Also, on the same day, William Hunter Aikens, late 
of the University of Vermont, second son of the Hon. 
Asa Aikens, aged 20 years. This talented, amiable 
and interesting young man has been cut down in the 
midst of his collegiate course. It is about a year since 
the insidious disease which was destined to prostrate 
in the dust the buoyant aspirations ot the youth and 
the fond hopes of parents and friends, began to mani- 
fest itself in the decline of his health. Although he 
had been placed under the special care of eminent med- 
ical gentlemen of the city of New York, no exertions 
could save him, and his friends are left with no other 
consolation than that his elevated spirit shrunk not at 
the prospect of death." 

This year also died two of the pioneers, Enos Love- 
land, aged seventy -eight, and John Halstead, aged 
seventy-four. Both born under the reign of a British 
king, they had lived to see the young republic come to 
that stage of development in which an i\.merican had 
just perfected the electric telegraph. Coming into the 
wooded wilderness of this region in 1800, they had seen, 
in the passage of a half-century, the growth of a busy 
little village, with comfortable homes scattered over all 
the tillable land of the township. 

1845. 

Town Meeting held at the Idq of H. J. Person. 
Asa Aikens, Supervisor. 
William D. Holcomb. Clerk. 



440 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Daniel S. Freoch was elected Justice of the Peace, and 
David S. McLeod was appointed to fill vacancy. 

Leverett Pardy, Collector. 

David P. Holton, Town Superintendent of Schools. 

Moses Felt, Aaron B. Mack, Archibald Patterson, As- 
sessors. 

George Skinner, William J. Cutting, Samuel Root, High- 
way Commissioners. 

James W. Eddy, David H. Sayre, William J. Cutting, 
Inspectors of Election. 

Albert P. Cole and Stephen Sayre, Poor Masters. 

Leverett Pardy, Horace P. Carpenter, Ira Downey. 
Ralph A. Loveland, Constables. 

John H. Low, Town Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters.— Thomas Walton, E. H. Cole, Samuel Root, 
Peter Ferris, Charles Fisher, Asa Loveland, William Viall. 
James xMarshall, Elijah Angier, George W. Sturteyant. 
Elijah Wright, Joseph Hardy, Anson Braman, D. R. Wood- 
ruff, Leonard Fisher, Harvey Smith, Marcus J. Hoising 
ton, John Daniels, Barton Hammond, Edward Harper, 1. 
T. Howard, Solomon Stockwell, Lee Prouty, Moses Felt, 
William Martin, Leonard Taylor, Benajah P. Douglass. 
William Hartwell, Orrin Skinner, James Fortune, Ziba 
Howard. 

Voted to raise $15.00 for Weights and Measures. 

This year we have no old newspaper to refer to, and 
so far as the knowledge of the present writer extends, 
no more of the Westport papers are in existence. 
Nothing is more ephemeral than a newspaper, and it is 
only by accident that our few treasures have been kept 
for us. Even now, as I write, some housewife may be 
going through some inherited garret like a destroying 
angel, piling up rubbish in the chip-yard, and applying 
a match to the last one of the old Turner papers. They 
were not published for more than three or four years 
after this, and if we had a copy of each number it would 
not take a very large place to pile them. Old letters 



II I STORY OF WKsrroirr 441 

aiul diaries contain much that is of interest, bat are not, 
. of course, generally accessible to the public. 

In January Piatt E. Halstead made one of his win- 
ter journejs to the south, to escape the chilling winds 
of the climate which had already set its seal upon all 
liis father's family. This was probabh his fiivst winter 
spent in the south, and after this he went ever}^ Avinter 
until his death, stopping in New York for a short visit 
to Dr. Evander Ranney, and then going on to Jackson- 
ville, Florida. He kept a diary of these trips, portions 
of which were printed in the New Yorl' EteniiKj Pont. 
He was personally acquainted with the editor, William 
Oullen Bryant, a man of exaeth' his own age. There 
are a few leaves of the manuscript of this diary left, in 
which he gives a description of Savannah, and says -. 
"\Ye arrived at Savannah about eleven o'clock, A. M. I 
took a walk through the town, and took quarters at the 
City Hotel. In the course of the da}' I came across 
Keusseiaer Koss, son of Tlieodorus Boss, formerly of 
Elizabethtown. He is an old acquaintance, and we 
were much pleased to meet each other/' His eye 
for military matters m thus shown: "Passed by the bar- 
racks of the U. S. troops^ about one hundred left. 
Went on the parade ground and saw tliem inspected. 
Should think them mostly recruits."' The first of Feb- 
ruary he concludes to go further south. ^'Made a feu 
purchases^ as I had been advised by a Mr. Hancock, a 
.gentleman from Virginia who had just returned from 
Jacksonville, sent some papers home, packed up my 
i^aggage, paid my bill, took afrieiidl}' sLakeoi i;h.e hand 



442 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

with some acquaintance which I had made while in Sa- 
vannah, and was accompanied to the boat by mine host 
of the hotel, Avho kindly introduced me to some gentle- 
men who were journeying south. The scenery this 
evening as we passed through it was very interesting to 
a Northern man. Some of the inlets appeared to me 
like our creeks, or the lake ten or twelve miles below 
Whitehall, excepting the marshes, smooth and even, ex- 
tending in some places, as far as the eye can reach, 
with numerous bluffs or islands covered with live oak, 
with its long grey hair-moss hanging from the limbs, 
with their beautiful green leaves. The yellow or long- 
leaved pitch-pine, stately and tall, with but few limbs 
until you approach the top of the tree, — the palmetto, 
which you frequently see along the banks or edges of 
the marshes, with its round top composed of long shin- 
ing green leaves, — all, all is new to me, and highly pic- 
turesque. We passed several islands, with large plan- 
tations, with venerable mansions, surrounded by their 
numerous out-buildings and negro houses, all white and 
neat in appearance. You occasionally get a view of tlie 
ocean, and see its huge billows bursting in foam on the 
sandy points of the islands, or the numerous bars be- 
tween them." This fragment of the diary stops with 
the boat running aground near Jacksonville. 

Lieutenant Halstead had given up his own house at 
the top of the hill not long nfter his s-ister's marriage, 
and had bought and remodeled the long white house 
which was built by Charles B. Hatch almost on the site 
of "the Gables." of the Westport Inn, but standing clos©^ 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 443 

upon the roacl. Here he occupied a bedroom and sit- 
tiDg room up stairs, in the north end, while Mrs. Van 
Vleck and her family occupied the rest of the house. 
Mrs. Van Vleck was an old and dear friend, and he 
took his meals with her, this arrangement lasting until 
his health failed so fast that he went to his sister's house 
and there died in 1849. This uncle was the fairy god- 
father of his sister's growing family of children, always 
coming back from the south with trunks full of gifts, 
and when he died he left them all his property. 

In 1845 was built a plank road to Elizabethtown 
with two toll gates, one standing near where the rail- 
way now crosses the road, and the other near the 
village of Elizabethtown. This road to the Val- 
ley had up to this time been invariably bad, running 
through low land wdiich could only be crossed by miles 
of agonizing corduroy. It was made a turnpike. This 
plank road greatly facilitated the carriage of ore from 
boats lying at our wharves, which had been loaded at 
Port Henry, to the forges at Elizabethtown and Lewis, 
and the return of their manufactured iron. This ye.iw 
a new forge was erected, on the Boquet, by W. P. & P. 
D. Merriam. It contained three fires, one hammer and 
two wheels. It consumed charcoal, burned in kilns on 
the Iron Ore tract owned by the company, and also in 
many a solitary kiln in the forest, tended by some 
farmer or woodsman willing to make a few dollars in 
this. way. Twenty-one years after the opening of Mer- 
riam's Forge, in 1866, according to Watson, it wasburn- 
mg eighty thousand bushels of charcoal, and making 



444 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

six hundred and thirty tons of ore into four hundred 
and fifty tons of iron, in one year. This was no doubt 
the maximum out-put. These works remained in ope- 
ration until about 1870, but since then have been shut 
down. 

This year D. L. Allen bought the Douglass wdiarf 
and store. For six years he had been at Wadhams, in 
partnership with J. R. DeLano. For thirty-three years 
he did a flourishing business in the Douglass store, and 
in 1878 moved into the large new store on North street, 
where his son, Frank W. Allen, has succeeded him. 
This makes a continuous business in town for sixty- 
three years, the longest in our history. David Lewis. 
Allen was a son of Nathaniel Allen,, who came in from- 
Panton in 1821. The other sons of Nathaniel Allen 
were Almond and James A., and his daughters i\.lma 
and Susan, now Mrs. Farnsworth. 

In 1845 the first steam propeller on the lake was 
built at Whitehall and called the James H. Hooker, af- 
terwards doing a large towing business. The Hooker, 
when first built, carried sails and had a center-board. 

In the trustees' book of the Baptist church is a list 
of the pew-holders of this year, which it is believed will 
be of interest. First comes the minister's pew, just 
south of the pulpit, occupied by the family of the Kev. 
Thomas Brandt. The nine other pews in the front of 
the church are owned by Joel Finney, Miles M'F. Saw- 
yer, H. Bostwick, Alexander Young, Alberrt P. Gole,. 
William Stacy, Ira Henderson, Norris McKinney, and 
William J. Cutting, Then i.a the body of the church 



HISTORY OF WFSrrORT 445 

Barnabas Mja^ick, Enos Loveland, Gideon Hammond, 
Edmund J. Smith, Calvio Angier, George B, Reynolds, 
Jonathan Nichols, Tillinghast Cole, Piatt Piogers 
Halstead, Abner Slaughter, Newton Hays, Darius Mer- 
riam, Calvin Hammond, William Olds, Dependence 
Nichols, Elijah Angier, Alonzo Slaughter, A. Barber, 
Hammond & McLeod, Ralph Loveland, E. Angier k 
Sons, Dan H. Kent, Joel B. Finney, Caleb P. Cole, 
James McKinney, Aaron B. Mack, Douglass & Allen, 
Mr. tlubbard, Charles B. Hatch, Dr. Ranney, Charles 
Hatch, William Viall, Jabez Frisbie, Luther Angier, E, 
B. Nichols. Each pew was considered the property of 
the person who bought it, and the prices varied accord- 
iug to the desirability of the situation, the highest being 
two at $90 each, owned b}^ Norris McKinney and Wil- 
liam J. Cutting, to half a dozen, mostly marked "Bap- 
tist Church," valued at |30. The sum total of value of 
all the pew^s was $4000. These names are not all those 
of members of the Baptist church. For instance, the 
Hatches aJl belonged to the Methodist church, but 
bought pews in the other church because thev were 
•.villing to help both societies. Neither were all these 
men living at the time, since we know Dan Kent, Enos 
Loveland and Barnabas Myriek were dead., but the pews 
were still held in their names. A similar list of pew- 
holders in the other churches at this time would be of 
ureat interest, but I have not been able to obtain them. 
This 3'ear the M. E. chui-ch built a new parsonage, 
ilirectly north of the church, which was in use until the 
n.'eseiit one was built in LS89, The old parsonage now 



446 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

stands at the western end of the bridge, and is owned 
by Mrs. John Touhey. The committee upon building 
the parsonage, which had been appointed four years 
before this, consisted of WilHam Mclntyre, Andrew 
Frisbie, E. Holcomb, John Greely and Aaron Clark. 

In connection with the subject of travel it is interest- 
ing to note a table of prices for this period, from which 
it appears that one could go from New York to Albany 
on a first-class steamer for fifty cents; from Albany to 
Whitehall, seventy-seven miles, on steamer and packet, 
for one dollar and thirteen cents; from Whitehall to St. 
John's, one hundred miles by steamer, twenty-five 
cents; from St. John's to LaPrairie, fifteen miles, by 
railway, fifty cents, and from LaPrairie to Montreal,, 
nine miles by steamer, fifty cents. 

1846. 

Town MeetiQuf at H. J. Persoo. 

Benajah P. Douglass, Supervisor. 

William D. Holcomb, Clerk. 

Thomas Waltoo, Justice. 

Asa P. Hammond, Town Superintendent of Commoo 
Schools. 

Ira Downey, Collector. 

Aaron B. Mack was elected Assessor for three years, 
M. Mitchell for two years and Andrew Frisbie for one 
year. This is the first time that the board of Assessors. 
was so formed that oce member should be changed every 
year. 

Jason Braman was elected Highwav Commissioner for" 
three years, William Mclntyre for two years and Hinkley 
Coll for one year. 

David H. Sayre, David S. McLeod, Roderick R. Rising, 
Inspectors of Election. 

Albert P. Cole and Benjamin Hardy, Poor Masters. 

Ira Downey, James B. McLa n, Charles H. Elddy^ Hor 
ace Fish J Constables^ 



HISrORY OF WESrPORT 447 

Dao S. Cutting, Sealer of Weiofhts and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — ^Thomas Walton, Alexander Stevenson, 
James W. Coll, Levi Frisbie, Albert P. Cole. Elijah New- 
ell, William Mclntyre. Eleazar H. Rauue}^ Elijah Antjier, 
George W. Sturtevant, Francis Hardy, Edwai'd Colburu. 
Joel K. French, Dyer S. Hill, Ephraim Bull. Jr., Harvey 
Smith, Abram Slaughter. Asa Smith, D. x\J. Howard, 
Stukely B, Stacy, Dorr M. Howard. Ezekiel Pangburn. F. 
Mason, Umphrey Sherman. Abram Greeley, L. Hubbard. 
Sewell Cutting, Willard HartwelL Orrin Skinner, John 
Stone, Rufus Barr. Ziba Howard. 

In December a new road was laid out near Brainard's 
Forge "through lands of Deliverance Nichols, DyerS. Hill 
and Nelson Lewis." 

Road district No. 10 was changed to run from "town 
line at M. P. Whallon's north-east corner to the line of 
Luther Angler's farm." 

This year the three men who were elected County Su- 
perintendents of the Poor vvere H. J. Persousand William 
L. Merriam of Westport. and Eli W. Rogers of Whal Ions- 
burgh. 

Ill May there was a special Town Meetiug to vote 
upon the question of giving licenses to liquor sellers. 
This was apparenth' the first time that the point had 
I risen. There were cast 265 votes, of whicli 149 were 
for "No License," and 116 for "License." This shows 
n great change in public opinion in the last fifteen years. 

This and the next occurred the Mexican War, but it 
seems not to have stirred a ripple on the calm waters 
of W^estport society. I have heard that Mr. Walter 
Root served in that war, but do not know whether he 
%vas a citizen of W^estport at that time. 

There was a new school house built at Wadhams^ 
which is still in use, and it was of future importance to 
as that this year the first sewing machine was perfected, 
;^ilth.ongh it was ten or fifteen years before the first one 



448 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

was brought into this town. This was also the time 
when three-cent postage was adopted, a change imme- 
diately affecting every individual. 

1847. 

Town Meeting at H. J. Person. 

John Hatch Low, Supervisor. 

Wilham D. Holcomb, Clerk. 

Samuel Koot and David S. McLeod, Justices. 

Ira Downey, Collector. 

Abram M. Olds, Town Supeiintendent of Schools. 

Andrew Frisbie, Assessor. 

Archibald Patterson, Highway Commissioner. 

Daniel W. Braman, Joseph R. Delano, David R. Wood- 
ruff, Inspectors of Election. 

Albert P. Cole and Joel F. Whitney, Poor Masters. 

Ira Downey, Loyal A. Baxter, Charles H. Eddy, Hosea 
Howard and Anson C. Rogers, Constables. 

Samuel H. Farns worth, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Thomas Walton, Alexander Stevenson. 
James W. CoU, Archibald Patterson, Albert P. Cole, WU- 
lard Frisbie, William H. Mcintyre, James Marshall, Henry 
Royce, George W. Sturfcevant, Daniel French, Joel R. 
Whitney, A. Finney, Geor^re Skinner, Samuel Storrs, Jus- 
tin Harris, Marcus J. HoisingtoQ, Albert Stringham. 
Luther B. Hammond, Dennis B. Stacy, Dorr W. Howard, 
Orlain Stockwell, Julius- W. Ferris, Moses Felt, Abram 
Greeley, Leonard Taylor, Sewall Cutting, Julius Vaughan, 
Orrin Skinner, John Stone, Levi Atwood, Ziba Howard. 

In April thore was a special election, held at the 
same house, to decide again upon the liquor question 
This time there were E16 votes, of which 191 were for 
■'License" and 125 for "No License." This reversal of 
tlie decision of the preoeding year shows intense agi- 
tation of the question. 

My. S. Wheaton Cole writes me thus about this year :. 
"I was teaching fifty-two years ago. the pas^t winter oii 



HISTORY OF WEHTPORT 44i) 

the north side of the bridge. The brick school house 
stood near the residence of Mr. William Olds, the black- 
smith. Rev. Thomas Brandt was pastor of the Baptist 
church, Rev. Pomeroy of the M. E. church. The mer- 
chants were B. P. Douglass on the north side, John H. 
Low, C. B. Hatch and Son, Walker Eddy, William 
Richards and Harvey Pierce on the south side. Lake 
Champlain was covered with sailing vessels and steam- 
ers then; there is scarcely one seen to-day. The entire 
country is cleared of its forests. The lake had good 
flocks and warehouses in every town, to-day there are 
but few. Change is written on everything in the east, 
yet I love to visit it." 

Miss Augusta Kent was also teaching at this time, a 
primary school in one room of the Academy. 

The Rev, Benjamin Pomeroy was not stationed here 
as preacher until the years 1849 and 1850. In 1847 
Rev. William W. Pierce was pastor of the M. E. church, 
and in 1848 Rev. D. P. Hulburd. At this time the pas- 
tor of the Congregational church was the Rev. Charles 
Spooner, who remained thirteen years^ from 1841 to 
1854. 

1848. 

Town Meeting at H. J. Person's. 

William J. Cutting, Supervisor. 

Samuel H. Farnsworth, Clerk. 

John H. Low and William D. Holcoirib, Justices. 

Daniel W. Braman, Town Superintendent of Schools. 

Ira Downey, Collector. 

Geo. Skinner, Assessor. 

John Greely, Highway Commissioner. 

Joei F. Whitnev and Albert P. Cole, Poor Masters. 



450 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

William P. Merriam and Edmund J. Smith, Inspectors 
of Election. 

Ira Downey, Nathan Slaughter, Harry N. Cole, Dorr W. 
Howard, Anson C. Rogers, Constables. 

Freeborn H. Page, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Diodorus Holcomb appointed Inspector of Election by 
the Town Board. 

Pathmasters. — Thomas Walton, Hinkley Coll, James W. 
Coll, Noel Merrill, Samuel W. Cole, Willard Frisbie, John 
Greely, William P. Merriam, James Marshall, Elijah An- 
gler, George W. Sturtevant, Jason Braman, Joseph R. 
Delano, Joel K. French, R.Woodruff, Alvin Burt, Johnson 
Hill, J. Nichols, Jr., David Smith, Dorr M. Howard, Hiram 
Stacy, Robert Doty, Horace Goodspeed, Julius W. Ferris, 
Orrin Cronk, Lorenzo Gibbs, George Bennett, D. L. Allen, 
J. B. Finney, Orrin Skinner, James Fortune, W. Tuns- 
dall, H. Howard. 

George Skinner appoiuted assessor. 

Miles M'F. Sawyer appointed Inspector of Election in 
place of Diodorus Holcomb, who refused to accept. 

At this town meeting the voters all protested against a 
reported petition which was to be presented to the Legis- 
lature by the town of Essex, praying that "one mile wide 
of Westport" should be set off into Essex. This protest- 
ing vote seems to have been sufficient for the purpose in- 
tended, as the Supervisor was instructed to send a copy 
of the protest to our Representative at Albany. 

A highway was laid out, upon application of Franklin 
H. Cutting and others, "through lands of the late Barna- 
bas Myrick and of Franklin H. Cutting, beginning eighty 
three links north of the building formerly occupied for a 
Hat Shop by Dan H. Kent, (who died two years before,) 
running thence east nearly to the old stone mill, thence 
south until it intersects the highway leading from Frank- 
lin H. Cutting's store easterly to the lake." 

A road was applied for by Jonathan Nichols, to be laid 
out "through lauds of the late John Chandler. Calvin 
Hammond, Charles Hammond, and Dennis and Joseph 
Stac3'." Mention is made of "the late Gideon Hammond,'' 
and of a "house being built by Dennis Stacy. " 

Town Meeting aijourned "to the Hotel of Ira Hender. 
son," which was kept by nis son-in-law, William Richaras 

This year came Mr. and Mrs. Francis L. Lee, from 



HISTORY OF WE Sr PORT 451 

Boston and built the house which they called "Stony 
Sides" on a hill north of the village, overlooking the 
lake. Mr. Lee was accustomed to give as his reason 
for building here that he had traveled through all parts 
of the habitable globe, and had never found a spot with 
a finer prospect nor with more natural advantages for 
a home. His taste for landscape gardening was fully 
indulged in the care which he bestowed upon the sur- 
roundings of his house, and many a garden and door- 
yard in the village was also improved by his advice, 
and by the gift of bulbs and flowering shrubs which 
still blossom every year to his memory. Henceforth 
the family spent their summers here, and the winters 
in Boston, or in travel. There were three sons and three 
daughters, Francis W., Thomas, Robert, who died when 
a child, Mary, afterward Mrs. Matthew Hale of Albany, 
Alice and Anne. There are now ten grandchildren : 
Mrs. Hale's children are Ellen, Matthew, Mary, Robert 
and Dorothy, and Mr. Francis W. Lee's are Mary, Guy 
Hunter, Isabella, Alice and Susan. 

A year or so before this time Mr. Francis H. Jackson 
of Boston, already connected with the Port Henry L'on 
Company, had bought the Sisco farm, on the shore of 
the bay, about a mile north of Hatch's wharf. This was 
a beautiful spot, with a wooded point enclosing a tiny 
bay, and commanding a wide view of the lake to the 
southward. Here on the point he built his house, and 
in 1848 completed one of the finest iron furnaces ever 
seen upon the lake. It is said to have cost one hundred 
thousand dollars, and with the well-known ingratitude 



452 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

so often found in costly buildings, never returned to its 
builders one-tenth of the price. Mr. Jackson called it 
the Sisco furnace, after the name of the people who 
had lived so long on the place, and the little bay has 
always been called the Sisco bay. A dozen workmen's 
houses, a large house for the book-keeper, offices, a 
store and a long row of giant coal kilns, with a wharf 
for the boats of the company, made up a village of per- 
haps a hundred souls, and it was soon given the popu- 
lar name of "Jacksonville." There was never a post- 
office there, but the place had a mail-bag of its own. 
The writer came upon a bit of humor in a recent Bos- 
ton story called "A Family Affair" which will be quite 
as wxll appreciated in Westport as it could be in Bos- 
ton : "There are Jacksons and Jacksons. As every- 
body knows, many, possibly most of those who bear 
that title might as well have been called Janes or Bob- 
inson; on the other hand 1 am told that certain Massa- 
chusetts families of that name will, on solicitation, ad- 
mit it to be their belief that Eve was a Cabot and Adam 
a Jackson." We may pride ourselves that it was not 
an ordinary Jackson, but one of the last named Gar- 
den-of-Eden Jacksons, of the first families of Boston, 
who gave the name to Jacksonville-in-Northwest-Bay. 

Watson says : "The motive power of the Sisco fur- 
nace was steam, and its products pig iron. T!ie ore 
used was chiefly from the Cheever bed, and in part 
from a bed two or three miles w^est of the village of 
Westport, and owned by the proprietors of the fur- 
nace," This means the Ledge Hill mine, in the mount- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 4dS 

ain just west of the Mountain Spring road, back of the 
McMahon place. This ore bed was opened soon after 
that at Nichols Pond called the Campbell bed. The 
ore was soon found to be titaniferous, and therefore 
not available for use in the furnace, but large quantities 
of the Moriah ore were manufactured. Says Watson : 
"In 1847 Lee & Sherman effected a sale of twenty 
thousand tons to F. H. Jackson of the Sisco furnace at 
Westport. This was the first sale made of ore to be 
used in furnaces." Charles Hatch, writing at about 
this time, says proudly, "We now find ourselves situ- 
ated in a pleasant Village of about one thousand in- 
habitants, plentifully supplied with all the necessaries 
of life and many luxuries, having now a variety of fac- 
tories, among others a furnace w^hich makes from 
six to nine tons of iron per day." This must have been 
its maximum production, and one not steadily main- 
tained for the eight or nine years in which the furnace 
remained in the possession of Mr. Jackson. In 1857 
the property passed out of his hands, but I believe that 
the family had returned to Boston before that time, 
the house being occupied for several years by Mr. 
Kalph A. Loveland, who had charge of the business. 
Before this, Mr. Silas H. Witherbee of Port Henry was 
manager and Mr. Victor C. Spencer book-keeper. Af- 
terward the property was owned by George W. Goff, 
who resided in the village. 

It was at this period, not long after the opening of 
the Sisco furnace, that the old forge site on the upper 
Black river was again built upon. This had been the 



454 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

scene of the first operations of Jonas Morgan, between 
the time of his receiviDg the larger patent from the state 
in 1799, and the year 1807. He built his forge on the 
Elizabethtown side of the river, "nearly opposite the 
Ira Daniels farm house," as I am told by an old resi- 
dent of the Black river country. Later he sold the 
forge to Jacob Southwell, and not long after the con- 
clusion of the war of 1812 the property was owned by 
Captain John Lobdell. Barnabas Myrick had also an 
interest here, probably in partnership with Captain 
Lobdell, and I think ran a saw mill at this place. The 
freshet of 1830 wrought great damage, and it is not 
certain that there was any business done here at all 
from that time until Guy Meigs* came not long pre- 
vious to 1850. He rebuilt the forge on the old site, 
with a saw mill and his own dwelling house on the op- 
posite or Westport side of the river, and here for a time 
he gave employment to a number of men, but in one of 
the frequent depressions in the iron business he suf- 
fered considerable loss, and concluded to try his for- 
tunes once more in the west. He left town in 1855, and 
since then there has been no iron made at the place 

*Guy Meigs came of that old and honorable Meig-s family which has supplied 
otficers to every war of the United States. Major Return Jonathan Meigs went 
with Arnold to Quebec in 1775, and there joining Montgomery, participated in the 
attack upon Quebec, and was taken prisoner in the failure of the assault, Guy 
Meigs (born 1817, died 1885) was the oldest son of Captain Luther Meigs, a soldier 
of the war of 1S12, and grandson of Benjamin Stone Meigs, one of the pion- 
eers of northern Vermont. Eight towns and one county, besides at least iwo forts, 
have been named after members of this Meigs family, and the mountain hamlet on 
the lonely course of the Black river may well keep its title for the sake of these 
associations. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 455 

that has been called for fifty years "Meigsville." The 
saw mill has been in operation of late years, owned by 
James E. Patten. 

1849. 

Town Meeting at the Inn of William Richards. 

William H. Cutting, Supervisor. 

Freeborn H. Page, Clerk. 

Jason Bramau, Justice. 

Barton B. Hammond, Collector. 

Aaron B. Mack, Assessor. 

D. H. Sayre, Highway' Commissioner, 

Aaron Clark and D. Mansfield Howard, Poor Masters. 

Miles M'F. Sawyer, Benjamin F. Holcomb, H. E. Smith, 
Inspectors of Election. 

Ira Downey, Nathan Slaughter, Harry N. Cole, Barton 
B. Hammond, A. C. Rogers, Constables. 

Alvin Davis, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Thomas Walton, Hinkley Coll, Samuel 
Root, Noel Merrill, William Joiner, Asa Loveland, William 
Richards, Darius Merriam, James Marshall, Montgomery 
Pike Whallon, Henry Betts, Titus M. Mitchell Benjamin 
Hardy, Asa Finney, David R. Woodrutf, William Lawrence, 
Harvey Smith, Marcus J. Hoisington, Alonzo Slaughter, 
Piatt Sheldon, Jonathan Nichols, John Ormiston, Horace 
Goodspeed, Francis Mason, Orrin B. Cronk, Abram Gree- 
ly, William C. West, Reuben Brown, Leonard Wares, D. 
M. Nichols, John Stone, Edwin Truesdall. Myron Chappell. 

For the first time we find it recorded that voters were 
challenged and obliged to swear that they were legal vo- 
ters in Westport. Six men were challenged and took the 
required oath: Electo Dupree, John Miller, William Wil- 
son, James Branard, Chandler Dutton, H. N. Tabor. 

Town Meeting adjourned to H. J. Person's. 

Noel Merrill was afterward appointed Collector in place 
oi B. B. Hammond, who had moved away. 

This reminds us that this year and the next saw the 
departure of all the family of the Hammonds. Deacon 
Gideon Hammond had died in 1846, and his widow and 



456 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

children soon decided to emigrate to the west. Neigh- 
bors of theirs in the western part of the town, the Nich- 
ols, Sloughters and Stacy's, with some others, took part 
in the general exodus, and they all settled in or near 
Camanche, Iowa, on the Mississippi river. This made 
a little Baptist colony, and there a new church was 
formed, containing between twenty and thirty original 
members from the Westport Baptist church. . 

Notwithstanding the attraction of the new lands of 
the west, which drew away a large number of our best 
citizens, young men were coming in from all directions 
to take up business enterprises. John C. Osborne, a 
young Englishman," opened a harness shop, J. Nelson 
Barton,* coming from Crown Point, was a carriage ma- 
ker, Peter P. Bacon, from St. Pierre, P. Q., soon opened 
a shoe shop, and William Douglass a blacksmith shop. 
Mr. Osborne afterward built the large house just north 
of the Armory. His children were George, who has 
continued his father's business after the death of 
the latter, Maria, who married John Gregory, and 
John, afterward Governor of Wyoming, and owner of 

♦One interesting^ fact about the Essex County Bartons is that they are descended 
from one of the Salem witches — that is, from one of the unfortunate women who 
were accused, of witchcraft at Saltm in 179S. Sarah Cloyse was accused, 
tried and sentenced to be hung, but escaped from prison and was 
hidden by her friends. She had two sisters who were hung for the crime of witch- 
craft. Her daughter by her first husband, Hannah Bridges, married Samuel Bar- 
ton, and the line comes down through Joshua, Timothy and Timothy Stow to 
Simon, who came to Moriah in iSia. Simon Barton's wife was Olive Cary, daugh- 
ter of John, and sixth in direct descent from the original immigrant John Cary, 
who came of the line of Sir Robert Cary. Brave stories are told of Sir Robert, but 
we do not love him as we love gentle Goodwife Cloyse, who suffered such bitter 
persecutions, at the hands of the Salem witch hunters. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 457 

large cattle rauches in that state. Mr. Edward Os- 
borne, brother of John Osborne, Senior, came to West- 
port later, after the war. 

Mr. Bacon married Louise Joubert, and their chil- 
dren were : 1. Eliza, married Cornelius Remington. 2. 
Ida, married John McCormick of Ticonderoga. 3. 
Emma, married Dr. Charles Holt, son of Augustus P. 
Holt. 4 Marie, married Harry P. Smith, now mana- 
ger of the Westport Inn. 5. Osite, married John H. 
Low, son of Edwin B. Low. 

Mr. Douglass, (not, I think, related to the family of 
Ebenezer Douglass,) married Marion Havens, daughter 
of Asah-el Havens. Their family record is a mournful 
one of early deaths. Clarence died as a child, James 
^nd Walter in their teens. Alice married Orcelius 
Olds^ Clara married Will Cross, and Lottie married 
Will Carey^ and all died 3^oung. Three sons, Carlos, 
Will and Ben^ ar<e still living in the west, with their 
-families. 

This year a^d the next Mr. George W. Goff was 
Member of Assembly. To Mr. Goff is given the credit 
of effecting the new division between Westport and 
Moriah, by which the southern boundaw of GillUaud's 
Bessboro was made the southern boundary of the towrt. 
This change gave the Cheever ore bed^ then just devel- 
oping in importance^ to Moriah. Aaron B, Mack was 
sheriff of tii^ eouaty for ithis and the two following 
years. 

In 1S49 were built the first Termont railroads, run- 
ning jaorili. and sou tJb through the state, ojq each side 



458 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

of the Green mountains. Thus the Champlaiu valley 
first echoed to the shriek of the iron horse, and the 
dwellers on the western shore first sa-w the white puff of 
steam against the mountains as they looked across the 
lake. Not for twenty-seven years did we have a rail- 
road on this side of the lake which went through from 
Albany to Montreal. 

In 1849 was organized the first Essex County Agri- 
cultural Society, in Keeseville, where the first fair was 
held. From 1850 to 1865 the annual fair was held in 
Elizabethtowu, and since then it hasbeen held in West- 
port. This is also the year in which a most remarka- 
ble figure appeared in Essex county, and was frequently 
seen at the county fair for the next five or six years, 
driving all the way from the high mountain plateau of 
North Elba fine blooded cattle for exhibition. The re- 
port of the Society for 1850 refers to "a number of very 
choice and beautiful Devons from the herds of Mr. John 
Brown,, residing in one of our most remote and secluded 
towns." This was none other than "John Brown of 
Ossawatomie," who died ten years afterward at Har~ 
per's Ferry. He was often seen in Westport,. going 
and coming on his many journeys,. and was looked upoii 
as an eccentric person with an absurd idea of establish- 
ing a colony of free negroes lu the freezing climate o£ 
North Elba. 



IIJSTORY OF WKSrrORT 4r,0 

185(). 

Town Meotiotj held at the Inn of H. J. Person s. 

Ralph A Loveland, Supervisor. 

BartoQ }^. Richards. Clerk. 

David S. McLeod. Justice. 

Andrew Frisbie. John H. Low and John J.. Merriatii, 
Assessors. 

Noel Merrill, Collector. 

S. W. Cole, Superintendent of Common Schools. 

Samuel Root, Hit^hway Commissioner. 

D. M. Howard, L. VY.' Pollard, Poor Masters. 

Aaron Clark. D. H. Sayre. David R. Woodruff. Inspec- 
tors of Election. 

Noel Merrill. J. F. Whitney, Ira Downey, D. M. Howard. 

D. B. Stacy, Constables. 

Alviu Davis. Sealer of Weights and Measures, 
Road district No. 1 dropped, since its territory now be- 
iontrs to Moriah. 

Pathmasters. — Hinkley Coll, Benjamin W^arren. Andrew 
Frisbie, Lorrin Cole, Asa Loveland, William Yiall, Darius 
Merriam, James Marshall, Cyrus Royee. Henry Betts, A . 

E. Wadhams. Benjamin Warren, Sylvester Young. Jared 
Ooodali, William Laurence., Johnson Hill, Marcus J. Hois- 
JQgton. Alonzo Slaughter, Dennis Person, Ed ward Harper, 
John Ormiston. Orson Stockwell. LeeProuty, AbramSher- 
man, William Bennett, Joel B. Finney. De]3€ndance Nich- 
ols, John Stone, Edwin Trusdall^ John Miller. 

Aaron B. Mack having been elected Sheriff" of the County, 
resigned his office as Assessor. 

In 1850 the township numbered 2,.1f»52 in population, 
a number never since equaled. The furnace at Jack- 
sonville employed many men in every capacity, and all 
through the back country wood cutters had eome in to 
cut and draw the wood for its use. All kinds of busi- 
Jiess prospered. D. L. Allen extended his wharf a 
hundred feet farther into the lake to accommodate the 
increased shipping, and the ehanees are that if the 
place had been to name again at this time it would have 
:l)een JSome.thing-or-other-op.olis, 



460 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Now Jenny Lincl was singing in New York, and her 
fame drew a number of Westport people to the city to 
hear her. I know the name of but one who went through 
hike, canal and river, on a packet boat, to the metrop- 
olis, and that one was Mrs. Miles M'F. Sawyer, who 
visited at Dr. Ranney's and came back with many a 
traveler's tale and notes upon the latest fashions. Then 
women wore great hoops, overspread with voluminous 
gathered skirts, tight bodices with belts, large flowing 
sleeves, often w^ith lace or embroidery under-sleeves, and 
wide flat collars of lace or needle-work which lay 
flat upon their shoulders, encircling the base of the 
neck. The shoulder seams of the bodices were uncon- 
scionably long, and the hair was worn combed 
smoothly down over the ears and coiled in a knot at the 
back, the ideal of perfection being a satin-smooth sur- 
face, without a stray hair floating. The bonnets were 
not so large as those worn in the thirties, but were still* 
often "poke" in shape, of the kind called "cottage bon- 
net." And very nice our grandmothers looked in hoops 
and mantilla, with black mitts covering all but the fin- 
gers of their hands, as they sailed up the church aisle 
of a Sunday. It t jok both grace and genius to manage 
a hoop well, and get it gracefully through narrow doors, 
but surely nothing displayed a rich dress fabric to bet- 
ter advantage. At this time changeable silks were much 
in favor, and the shimmering breadths, billowing out 
from a slender waist, were very pretty. When Mar- 
garet Angier married Harvey Pierce she had a red and 
green changeable silk for a wedding dress, and it was 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 461 

carefully laid away to be shown to the generations 
following. My grandmother used to wear a wide-fiow- 
ing dress made of what they called "Mexican grena- 
dine," a soft gray ground with green and purple flowers, 
and over this she spread a mantilla of changeable blue 
and green silk, trimmed with ''milliner's folds" of the 
same, laid on with the most exquisite stitches. The 
earliest daguerreotypes show many of these costumes. 



1851. 

Town Meetint^ at the Inn of H. J. Per,son's. 

Benjamin Warren, Supervisor. 

Barton B. Richards, Clerk. 

William D. Holcomb, Justice. 

John L. Merriam. Assessor. 

Aaron Claris, Collector. 

Jared Goodale, Highway Commissioner. 

D. M. Howard and L. W. Pollard, Overseers of the Poor. 

Benjamin F. Holcomb, David S. McLeod, Cyrus W. 
Richards, Inspectors of Election. 

Ira Downey, Perrio J. Aioger. Richard Brown, Aaron 
Clark, Dennis B. Stacy, Constables. 

Alvin Davis, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Hinkley Coll, B. I. Warren. Henry Fris- 
bie, A. P. Cole, Asa Loveland. William Mclntyre, Joseph 
James, Sa.Duel Anderson, Henry Royce, Henry Betts, 
Elijah Wright, Benjamin Hardy, Sylvester Young, Rus- 
sell Woodruff, Royal Storrs, Johnson Hill, Jonathan Nich- 
ols, Leonard Avery. Eli Wood. Warren Pooler, Alvin 
Burt, Orson Stockwell, Luman Hubbard. Titus Sherman. 
Steven Jack worth, Leonard Taylor, Charles Vaughan, 
Orrin Skinner, James Fortune, Edward Trusdaie, John 
Miller. 

Two men challenged, Lorenzo B. Nichols and Erastus 
Huntley. , 

Voted to raise $150.00 for support of the poor. 

It is hard to tell from the meagre accounts left of the 
existence of the Essex County Academy, how long it 



462 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

remained the leading school in the county, but we are 
inclined to think that its first days were perhaps its best, 
at least so far as the education of the older class of 
academic students is concerned. About 1850 or 1851 
there were young people sent away to private boarding 
schools in Vermont, as Phebe and Piatt Sawyer were 
sent to Bakersfield, and a little later their brother Irv- 
ing was sent to the school in Fairfax, Vt. Miss Wil- 
lard's famous school for girls in Troy was no longer 
open. Miss Willard, I think, being engaged in visiting 
other female seminaries, both north and south, and lec- 
turing upon education. Some of the Westport youtli 
were sent to the Academy at Keeseville, and there 
Alonzo Alden studied from 1851 to 1853. It was not 
uncommon for- the girls to be sent to the co-nvent schools 
in Montreal, in spite of the rigid Pr(5testantism which 
prevailed^ for a certain dainty finish and demurenesi< 
of manner which was acquired there,, together with the 
incomparable needle-work which was taught. 

Looking over a sheaf of old letters, I find one from 
Elias^ Sturtevant to his son John in Gasport, dated 
Westport, April 7, 185-1, in wdiich he gives this, with 
other bits ot news :: "Mr. Hunter has built a steam saw- 
mill at Eock Harbour and sold iit to Moses Felt for 
$5000 with 300 acres of iand." It was this mill which- 
ate away ali the magnificent first-growth pine of North 
Shore, which was rafted away by water.. The foresfe 
which now covers it is, I am, told,, all a second growth. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 463 

185'^. 

Town MeetiDf^ at H. J. Person's. 

Daniel W. Branian, Supervisor. 

Barton B. Richards, Clerk. 

Phineas N. Hartwell, Superintendent of Common S(;liools. 

Asa Aikens and Cyrus W. Richards, J ustices. 

Harry J. Person, Assessor. 

William Richards, Highway Commissioner. 

Dennis B. Stacy. Collector. 

Peter Ferris and Benjamin F. Holcomb. Poor Masters. 

Miles M"F. Sawyer, David R. Woodruff and Freeborn 
H. Paofe, Inspectors. 

Dennis B. Stacy, Ira Downey, Aaron Clark. Richard 
Brown, Lew W. Pollard, Constables. 

Henry H. Holcom.b, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 

Pathmasters. — Hinkley Coll. Israel Pattison, Archibald 
I'^attisoo, Augustus Holt, Asa Loveland. William Mclntyre. 
Darius Merriara, James Marshall. Elijah Angler, George 
W. Sturtevant. Jason Braman, Joei Whitney. Arza Finney, 
Artemas Hartwell, Joshua Slaughter, Johnson Hill. John 
R. Nichols. Asa Smith, Piatt Sheldon, Horace Atwood, 
John Orraston, Joseph Atwood. Jialius Ferris, Orren 
Cronk, Steven Jack worth, Orren Taylor, Leonard Wares.. 
D M. Nichols. John Stone. Edward Truesdale. John 
Miller. 

Adjourned to the inn of William Richards. 

Whatever the early history of Free Masonry in 
W^estport, it is certain that the present lodge was estab- 
hshed in 1852. by recommendatio-u of MorniDg Sun 
Lodge, No. 142, which had been established in Port 
Henry four years before. At this time Westport was 
in the high tide of prosperity, the centre and source of 
which was the iron business and the fine new Sisco 
furnace, therefore it seemed appropriate to recognize 
this in the name of the new lodge, and it was called 
Sisco Lodge, No. 259. The first officers were George 
H. Blinn, W. M.; John Bowers, S. W^; €harles 
U. Hatch, J. W. George H. Blinn bad been .one of the 



464 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

first officers of the Port Henry lodge, being J. W. in 
1848 and W. M. in 1849, therefore it would seem that 
he had moved into Westport not long before this time. 
The lodge meetings were held here onW four years 
after organization, declining with the decline and fall of 
the Sisco furnace after which it had been named, since 
Jackson's failure occurred in 1857, and the lodge meet- 
ings were held in Whallonsburgh from 1856 to 1870. 
Up to that time the Masters had been George H. Blinn^ 
Asa P. Hammond of Wadhams Mills, Lewis Cady of 
Whallonsburgh, John Burt, Jr., of Essex, Willett E. 
Kogers of Whallonsburgh, Eli W. Rogers of Whallons- 
burgh, and Philetus. D. Merriam, Westpart. In 1870 
th© meetings began to be held in Westport again, where 
they have been held ever since, the successive Masters 
being in every case Westpoi^t men. John J. Greeley 
has held the ofEce, not continuously, for over fifteen 
years, varied by occasio-nal terms of service from George 
C. Osborne, Henry I. Stone and Nelson J. Gibbs. 

The Mason's, hall was. in the seeojid story of the build- 
ing on the corner of Washington and Main, (formerly 
occupied as the printing offi^ce of the Westport news- 
paper,) until the burning of the whole block, Aug. 15th,. 
1876. When the block was rebuilt,, the Masons owned 
the northern tliird, renting the lower floor and occupy- 
ing the second floor as a hall. A new charter was 
granted June 2.7th, 1877, and om September 2^6th the 
new hall was dedicated. About five hundred Masons 
were present on. that occasion, from lodges on both 
sides of tlije Ixike,, witli tlie De Sota Commandeij 



JIISTORY OF WESrrORT 40n 

Knights Templar of Plattsburgll, the Knights Templar 
of Burlington, accompanied by the Queen City band. 
The wives of the Masons of Sisco Lodge provided re- 
freshments, and the social occasion was a great success. 
Afterward, when the Westport Inn was opened, this 
block was sold, and the lodge moved once more, to the 
rooms in the flat over the post office, which it still oc- 
cupies. Lodge meetings are held on the first and third 
Saturdays of the month. 

The name of Augustus Holt in the town records re^ 
minds us that Alva Holt had now come from Keene, 
and was living in the stone house at the forks of the 
road south of the village, formerly occupied by the 
Rogers family. Alva Holt had four sons, Charles Holt 
of Keene, Smith Holt of Willsboro, Henry Holt of Bo- 
quet, and Augustus, who is still living in Westport, 
having been supervisor of the town> His daughter 
Carrie is now Mrs. Shelley, of New York, and his son, 
Charles, has practiced dentistry in his native place for 
several years. Mrs. Reuben J, Ingalls is a daughter of 
Alva Holt 

1858. 

Towo M.eeting at H. J. Person's. 
Ralph A. Loveland, Supervisor. 
Hiram H. Downey, Clerk. 
Jason Branaan, Justice. 
Archibald Pattisou, iVssessor. 
Samuel Root, Highway Commissioaer. 
Peter Ferris and Luther Angier, Poor Masters. 
William Mclntyre, William Douglass, William P. M-er^ 
riam, Inspectors of Ele.ctJojQ. 



466 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Dennis B. Stacy, Ira ^Downey, Richard Brown, Harry 
N. Cole, Constables. 

Pathmasters. — Alpheus Stone, Israel Pattison, Hiram 
Cole, S. Wheaton Cole, Jeremiah Flinn, John Greeley. 
Joseph James, Merlin Augier, Luther Angier. George W. 
Sturtevant, J. R. Whitney, Joel Whitney, B. F. Sprague, 
D. R. Woodruff, Samuel Storrs, Harvey Smith, Barney 
Boyle, William Downey, Eli Wood, Eleazer Welch, Jesse 
Sherman, Solomon Stock well, Julius Ferris, Moses Felt. 
Franklin Bennett, Leonard Ware, D. N. Nichols, James 
Fortune, Edward Truesdale, Hiram Howard. 

Town Meeting adjourned to the Inn of William Richards. 

This year was built the steamboat Canada, the larg- 
est yet built on the lake, 260 feet long, 30 feet wide and 
10^ feet deep, with a speed of 17 miles an hour. Capt. 
S. K Foster stood on her deck, and as she ran until 
1870, many of us can remember her right well as she 
came grandly to the wharf every day in summer, the 
delight of all the youthful population to whom the ar- 
rival of the line boats, and their discharge of freight 
and passengers, will always be a most interesting event. 



1854. 

Town Meeting held at the Inn of William Richards. 

Ralph A. Loveland, Supervisor. 

Freeborn H. Page, Clerk. 

John Hatch Low, Justice. 

Guy Stevens, Collector. 

D. L. Allen and Calvin Fisher, Assessors. 

Elijah Wright, Highway Commissioner. 

Abram M. Olds, Superintendent of Common Schools. 

Titus M. Mitchell and William Mclutyre, Poor Masters. 

Harry N. Cole, Joel F. Whitney, Harvey Pierce, Inspec- 
tors of Election. 

Guy Stevens, B. F. Holcomb, J. F. Whitney, Ira Dowuev, 
John Mitchell, Constaoles. 

Edwin R. Person, Sealer of Weights and Measures. 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 467 

The Highway Commissioner reports that it will be nec- 
essary to raise $200. UO the present year. 

Pathniasters. — Alpheus Stone, Henry E. Warren. Arch- 
ibald Patterson, Harry N. Cole, John Mitchell, William 
Mclntyre, P. D. Merriam, James Marshall, Luther Angier, 
George W. Sturtevaut, Levi Cross, Cicero Sayre, B. T. 
Spragu.^, David R. Woodruff, Calvin Pratt, Harvey Smith, 
Asahel Havens, Leonard Avery, Eli Wood. Eleazar Welch, 
John Ormiston. Ira Allen, L3e Prouty, Titus Sherman, 
(xeorge Bennett, Willard Hartwell, George Vautrhan, James 
Fortune, Edward Truesdale, Edwin Thompson. 

Adjourned to the Inn of H. J. Person. 

Phiueas N. Hartwell resigned the office of Superintend- 
ent of Common Schools and Abram Marshall Olds was ap- 
pointed in his place. 

Survey of road to Young's Bay. "'Beginning on the 
eastern boundary of the highway leading from Westport to 
x\rchibald Patterson's thirty-eight links northerly from 
the south corner of Andrew Frisbie's farm, to the lake 
shore." J. K. French, Surveyor. 

This year James A. Alien bought the soiitheiHi or 

Hatch wharf, and for about twenty-five years either of 

our principal wharves might be spoken of as "Allen's 

wharf," since D. L. Allen had owned the northern or 

Douglass wharf since 1845. The Hatch wharf was sold 

to Capt. Samuel Price in 1879, and then to David Clark, 

wdio now owns it. The Douglass wharf was sold to 

Daniel F. Payne in 1880, and is still in his possession. 

1855. 

Town Meeting at the Inn of H. J. Person's. 
Cephas Bradley, Supervisor. 
Benjamin F. Holcomb, Clerk. 
Miles M'F. Sawyer, Justice. 
William L. Wadhams, Assessor. 
Daniel M. Howard, Highway Commissioner. 
William Mclntyre and Artemas Hartwell, Poor Masters. 
Lorenzo Gibbs, Hinkley Coll, Dan W. Braraan, Inspec- 
Tjors of Election. 



468. HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Ira Henderson, Collector. 

Horace Barnes, Joel F. Whitney, Ira Henderson, Alvin 
Davis, Richard Brown, Constaoles. 

Pathmasters. — Alpheus Stone, Henry E. Warren, Levi 
F^isbie, Isaac D. Lyon, Jonathan Holcomb, D. L. Allen. 
Joseph James, James Marshall, Newell Knowlton, George 
W. Sturtevant, Elijah W^right, Joseph E. Smith, Sylvester 
Young, Austin Bigelow, Howard H. Farnsworth, Harvey 
Smith, Asahel Havens, Asa Smith, Albert Carpenter, Al- 
vin Peasley, F. B. Howard, John McConley, Lee Prouty, 
Cyrus Royce, Leonard Taylor, William Pierce, George 
Vaughan, James Fortune, Edward Truesdell, Edwin 
Thompson. 

Alva S. Holt was appointed Pathmaster in the place of 
Isaac D. Lyon. 

Road district No. 26 was newly formed, and began "at 
the west line of the lot of Eleazer Welch, and running west 
to the west line of the land of William P. and Philetus D. 
iMerriam." P. D. iVJerriam was pathmaster of the district. 

This means a new road district in the Iron Ore Tract, 
on th*e road to Seventy-five, where W. P. & P. D. Mer- 
riam had their coal kilns, and where the trail went in to 
the ore bed at Nichols Pond, just now beginning to be 
worked. The. owners of the ore bed had need of a good 
road out to the highway, as an outlet for their ore and 
an inlet for their mining supplies and machinery. 

Another traged}^ upon the water. Four young men 
came up the lake from Montreal in a pleasure yacht. 
Two of them were brothers named Webster, relatives 
of the Ferrises, and of the third wife of Judge Charles 
Hatch. One day, in November, John Ferris and his 
son Peter joined the party in the 3^acht, and they sailed 
southward. Near Crown Point the boat was upset, and 
the six men clung to the boat sides and rigging and 
floa-ted about, calling for help, until completely chiUed 



HISTORY 0I\ WESTPORT 469 

and exhausted. One bj? one the four young men from 
Montreal lost each his hold and sunk from sight. John 
Ferris was an older man and a hardier, and his strength 
held out until help arrived.* Peter Ferris was rescued 
in an unconscious condition, only saved by the singular 
fact that the fingers of one of his hands were stiffened, 
from the effects of a scalding in infancy, so that he had 
no power to straighten them. This hand was hooked 
over a rope or some part of the boat and held him there 
after he became insensible. 

After Mr. Peter Ferris died I was permitted to look 
over some of his papers, and among them there was 
such a pathetic letter from the father of the two young 
Websters who were drowned, written to eTohn Ferris 
immediatel}^ after. In it he says, "I sincerely thank 
God that he has spared you your only son, although 
we have lost all of ours," — a resignation, it seemed to 
me, more piteous than the most clamorous grief. 

It would seem from the fact there had been no camp 
meeting held in town for eleven years that these out- 
door gatherings for religious exercises had fallen some- 
what into disfavor. Luxury and refinement of living 
had greatly increased since the early days of immense 

*One not accustomed to our waters will find it hard to realize the chill of the icy 
waves of November. Fresh water has not the buoyancy of salt water, and it is 
more difficult to swim or to float in it on that account. Its effect is also more ener- 
vating. A few summers ago a young lady at Rock Harbor swam across the lake 
from Basin Harbor to Calamity Point, a distance of one mile and twenty rods 
This was a much more difficult: feat than may appear to a person accustomed only 
to salt water. It was accomplished in safety, but followed by alarming chills and 
exhaustion. If we have not the dangers of the surf and the undertow, neither 
have we the exhilaration of the ocean waves. 



470 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

attendance at camp meetings, and doubtless a genera- 
tion bad arisen which would not brave the discomfort 
of primitive camp life, in all weathers, for the sake of 
preaching which might as well be heard, perhaps, in- 
side their commodious churches. Nevertheless, this 
year a camp meeting was held, not as before near the 
lake shore, but in the northern part of the town, on land 
of Frank Benoett's, west of Wadhams Mills. And these 
meetings were no longer representative of all denomi- 
nations, as in the early days, but now belonged almost 
entirely to the M. E. church. 

In Joseph Cook's history of Ticonderoga we find 
that the first mower in that town, which was also the 
first in the Champlain valley, was used in June of 1855. 
I am inclined to think that none were used in Westport 
until two years later. 

1856. 

Town Meeticg- at the Inn of H. J. Person's. 

Cephas Bradley. Supervisor. 

Dan S. Cuttini?, Clerk. 

William F. Chatterton, and Richard C.Gardner. Justices. 

David L. Allen, Assessor. 

Victor C. Spencer, Superintendent of Schools. 

Guv Stevens, Collector. 

Moses Coll, fljo-hway Commissioner, 

Artemas Hartwell and Orrin B. Howard, Overseers of 
the Poor. 

Oranfi^e Gibbs, Philetus D. Merriam, James W. Eddy. 
Inspectors of Election. 

Guy Stevens. Horace Barnes, Hinkley Coll, Aaron Peas- 
ley, Thomas Dickerson, Constables. 

These entries in the town book are certified to by three 
Justices, John H. Low, Miles M'F. Sawyerand Jason Bra- 
man. 

Pathmasters. — William Stevenson, Samuel Root, Peter- 
Ferris, Asa Kinney, Charles W. Holcomb, William Mcln- 



I 

I 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 471 

tyre, Darius Merriam, James Marshall, Cyrus Ro.yce, 
Georofe VV. Sturtevaot, Dorr W. Howard, Joseph E. Smith, 
Augustus Hill, David R Woodruff, Calvin Fisher, Mont- 
ravill Hill, Marcus Hoisiugton, Asa Smith, Daniel M. How- 
ard, Aaron Peasley, Alviu Burtt, John McConley, Jr., 
Luman Hubhard, Jonathan Braisted, John E. Smith, 
Franklin Bennett. William Pierce, Samuel Pierce, James 
Fortune, Edward Truesdale, Edwin Thompson. 

Asa Kinney had just come in from Jay. His father 
was JosiahKinney,a Revolutionary soldier in Connecti- 
cut, and Asa Kinney had fought in the battle of Platts- 
burgh, spending some time in hospital at Burlington 
while down with camp fever. He was buried in West- 
port, and his grave should be remembered as that of 
one of the soldiers of the war of 1812. His son Fred- 
erick and his grandson Warren still reside here. 

Not until 1856 did Charles Hatch die, at the age of 
eighty-eight, having lived in the town for fifty-four 
years. Born a subject of King George he saw tw^o 
wars with Great Britain, and lived to see John Brown, 
perhaps, stepping off some boat upon his wharf with a 
little party of negroes bound for the colony in 
North Elba — the first warnings of the Civil W^ar. No 
one had done more than he — perhaps no one had done 
so much — to change the little clearing at the head of 
Northwest Bay wdiich he found here in 1802, to the 
bus}' and prosperous village which he saw the last 
year of his life. Were the old Squire's life written, ex- 
actly as it ran, it would make a volume as varied and 
romantic, with as interesting situations, as the last new 
novel of the school of realism. 

The autumn rains of this year caused unusually de- 



472 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

structive floods, especially upon the upper course of the 
Boquet, in Elizabethtown. There the tale will always 
be told that October 1 was the wedding night of Mat- 
thew Hale and Ellen Hand, but the day before the river 
rose and carried away the bridge by which the groom 
must cross to the wedding. By great exertions a tem- H 
porary foot bridge was thrown across the river, but one ! 

so frail and unsteady that the groom and one of the 
wedding guests slipped off in attempting to cross and 
were carried down the swollen stream. Eescued, with '^ 
much danger and difficulty, the wedding came off just 
the same, and if it had happened in the Scottish high- ,, , 
lands, what a ballad would have been sung by some v | 
ancient bard to his harp that night ! ;; 

Some of our old people remember that in Septem- 
ber of '56 they went to the County Fair at E'town and 
heard Horace Greeley speak. They usually add, per- 
haps partly to show their own superiorit3% that they 
did not consider him a very effective oraton 

1857. 

Town Meeting at H. J. Person 's» 

David Jj, Allen, Supervisor. 

Charles H. £ddy. Clerk. 

Jason Braman, Justice. 

Joaathan Holcomb, Collector. 

Elijah Wright, Highway Coniniissioiier. 

Peter Ferris, and Jesse Sanders, Overseers of tfce Poor. 

Joseph E. Smithy Freeborn H. Page and Janoes M. Bow- 
man, Inspectors. 

Noel Merrill, Assessor. 

Jonathan Holcon^b, Oscar Taylor, Joel F. Whitney^ Jere- 
miah Flinn, Augustus Holt, Constables. 

Pathoaasters- — Alexander Stevenson^ Reuel W.. Arnold. 



HISTORY OF WEsrronr 473 

Xoel Merrill, Orriu B. Howard, Nathaaiel Allen. Willard 
Intralls, William I*. Merriam, Merlin Angrier. Luther An- 
jier, George W. Sturtevant, Cyreous R. Payne, Cicero 
;^ayre, Joel K. French, D. R. Woodrutf, Norman Storrs. 
Montravill Hill, Patrick Bovle. Justin Prouty, Albert Car- 
pouter. Warren Pooler, F. B. Howard, ApoUos Goodspeed. 
I.ee Prouty, Martin Pierce, James Fortune, Franklin Beu- 
uett, Curtis Bennet. Martin Pierce, James Fortune, Ed- 
ward Truesdale, Edwin Thompson. 

This year Ralph A. Loveland was State Senator and 
John L. Merriam CouDty Treasurer. Soon after this 
Mr. Loveland was conducting a large himber business 
in Albany, with partners, under the firm name of White, 
Loveland <& Co. After some years he removed to Janes- 
ville, Wis,, then to Chicago in 1869, and then to Sagi- 
naw, Michigan, where he died in 1899, 

It was in this year that Dr. George T. Stevens began 
practicing medicine at Wadhams Mills. In 1861 he 
married Harriet, daughter of W^illiam L. Wadhams. 
During the Civil War he was Surgeon of the 77th regi- 
ment, N. Y. Y. He afterward removed' to Brooklyn, 
where he became well-known as a specialist in diseases 
of the eye. He has written a number of books upon 
scientific subjects. 

Joseph Cook, then only a promising young man from 
Ti, delivered a lecture here upon "Alcohol and the Hu- 
man Brain." 

Of all our stories of shipwreck, 1 know of but one 

s\ hich occurred upon the ocean. After the discovery 

■A gold in California in 1849, there was a great rush 

from all the eastern states to the Pacific coast, and one 

'f the men who went from Westport to seek his for- 



474 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

tunes in the gold mines was Benjamin Mayhew Sheldon. 
He had married Harriet Barber, daughter of Hezekiah, 
and they had four little children, Silas, Rose, Edith and 
Emma. He went to California by water. Arrived at 
the mines, he succeeded in getting quite a small fortune 
for those days, about five thousand dollars, it was be- 
lieved. Receiving a letter from his wife in which she 
spoke of being ill, the desire to see his family again 
overcame the desire for riches, and he went to San 
Francisco and there took the same steamer upon which 
he came out, the Centred JmaHca, Captain Herndon. 
The ship made the greater part of the return trip in 
safety, touching at Aspinwall, rounding Cape Horn, and 
arriving at Havana, which she left September 8th, 1857. 
Three days afterward a great gale came up, and the 
ship sprung a leak. The pumps were kept going, the 
passengers taking their turn with the crew, but the wa- 
ter rose so rapidly that it put out the fires under the 
boilers, and the ship lay at the mercy of the waves. At 
two o'clock on Saturday afterncx>n, a brig was sighted, 
the Marine, and signaled for help. Five boat-loads of 
passengers were taken from the steamer to the brig, the 
women and children being taken first. Then the waves 
rolled so high, and the two vessels had drifted so far 
apart that the steamer was abandoned to her fate, and 
was. thought to have gone down at about eight o'clock 
that evening. Captain Herndon went down with his 
ship. In the mails there was over a million dollars in 
specie^ besides large quaatities of gold carried by indi- 



iffSTO/rr OF wiJSTj'oirr 47r^ 

^idual passengers. Of the 163 men who went down 
with the ship, Benjamin Sheldon was one. 

Another life sacrificed to the search for California 
gold was that of Abraham Wadhams. He lived to see 
his home again, but contracted ship-fever on the voyage, 
and died immediately upon his return. Others who 
went, and brought back more or less of a burden of 
wealth were Reuben Ingalls, Orrin Howard, Jonathan 
Braisted, and the sons of Elijah Newell. The latter did 
not return to Westport, but made their homes in the 
south. 

1858. 

Town Meeting held at the Inn of H. J. Persons. 

David L. Allen, Supervisor. 

Charles H. Eddy, Clerk. 

John H. Low, Justice. 

David R. Woodruff, Assessor. 

Daniel xM. Howard, Hitrhwav Commissioner. 

Peter Ferris and Levi H. Cross, Poor Mjisters. 

Joseph L. Smith, Buel W. Arnold and Elenry 1. Estey, 
Inspectors of Election. 

James M. Bowman, Collector. 

Henry H. Holcomb, Cyrenus R Payne, Willard Ingalls, 
Jonathan Holcomb, Dan S. Cuttinor. Coistables. 

Voted to allow A. M. Olds $12.00 for an error in school 
money. 

Pathmasters.— Granville Stone, B. W. Arnold. Archi- 
bald Patterson, Harvey Pierce. Josiah Pierce, John C4ree- 
ley. William P. Merriam. Samuel Anderson. M. P. Whal- 
lon, George W. Sturtevaut, Elijah Wri^^ht. Orrin F. Hardy, 
Arza Phinney, D. H. Woodruff, William Laurence. Harvey 
.Smith, A. M. Olds, Leonard Avery, Piatt Sheldon, iVbram 
Greeley. Alvin Burt, Solomon Stockwell. Liuman Hubbard, 
Abram Sherman, Franklin Bosley, Franklin Bennett, Jul- 
ius Vaughan, George Vautrhan, James Fortune. 

This year thei'e was plenty of business for the "Fence 
V)evvers. " The name of this old office had been long 



476 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

dropped, but its duties were performed by the Highway 
Commissioaers. Moses Coll and Elijah Wright were 
obliged to settle a dispute about a line fence between land 
of James W. Coil's and James Peets', and then another, in 
the same neighborhood, about a line fence between Archi- 
bald Pattison and Reuel Arnold. 

It is interesting to compare the census of 1858 with 
that taken thirty 3^ears before. Then about one- fifth 
the land was reported as improved, now it is more than 
half under cultivation. Real estate has risen in value 
from $86,423 to $375,537, and personal property from 
$1,590 to $16,250. In Joseph Cook's history of Ticon- 
deroga, he remarks upon the fact that the real estate 
of Westport increased in value more than four times in 
30 years. Population has increased from 1322 to 2041. 
Then 424 children were taught in the schools during 
the year, now there are 814. In one thing there is an 
immense reduction. From 9985 yards of cloth of do- 
mestic manufacture in 1829, the record falls to 285 in 
1858. 

This year there were 396 dwellings in town, 408 fam- 
ilies, 207 free-holders and 12 school districts. 498 
horses, against 237 thirty years before, and 5,231 sheep 
against 3,801. Now there were also 1022 working oxen 
and calves, 623 cows, and 506 swine. The town pro- 
duced 31,500 bushels of gr .in, 3000 tons of hay, 12,999 
barrels of potatoes, 6,815 barrels of apples, 45,713 
pounds of butter, and 8,377 pounds of cheese. 

The New York Gazetteer of 1860, using the statistics || 
of this year, reports as our chief characteristics, "iron, 
leather and j lumber largely manufactured. Wes-tport 



i 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 477 

./ODtaios the Essex County Academy and 456 inhabi- 
tants, ^^idhams Mills has twenty-five houses," 



1859 

Town Meetiog held at H. J. Person's. 

David L. Ailea. Supervisor. 

Hiram H. Downey, Cleric. 

David S. McLeod, Justice. 

Harry N. Cole, Assessor. 

Israel Patterson, Highway Commissioner. 

James A. Allen, Collector. 

Philetus D. Merriam and Peter Ferris, Poor Masters. 

Hinkley Coll, Orlando Sayre and Barton B. Richards, 
Inspectors of Elections. 

James A. Allen, Jobn R. Stacy, CyrenusR. Payne, Jona- 
than Holcomb, Hinkley Coll, Constables. 

Voted that the mone}' in the hands of the Supervisor 
should be used to purchase the Revised Statutes. 

Pathmasters. — District No. 1 for the first time since 
1849. Orrin Howard, Alexander Stevenson, R. W. Arnold, 
George Patterson, Harvey Pierce, Elijah Newell, William 
Richards, W. P. Merriam, Merlin Augier, Cyrus B. Royce. 
G. W. Sturtevant, Elijah Wright, O. F. Hardy, Sylvester 
Young, F. Johnson, A. P. Sherman, Harvey Smith. Pat- 
rick Boyle, Harriman Daniels, E. J. Smith, Warren Pooler, 
John Ormstou, John McConley, Julius Ferris. Henry B. 
Royce, John E. Smith, Franklin Bennett, William Pierce. 
Samuel Pierce, James Fortune. 

In the highway districts we find mentioned "along the 
plank road to the wharf of Hatch and Allen, thence up the 
hill to the corner of F. H. Page's store. '' 

This year came in a quaint and unusual industry, 
that of making clay pipes by hand. At < the mouth of 
the Raymond brook, on Bessboro, near the island of 
Father Jogues, stands an old house, on the site, it is 
believed, of one of the dwellings of the ancient settle- 
ment of Raymond's Mills. Here, in one end of the 
house, was the shop, communicating at the back witli 



47S HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

a brick kilo, built for burning the pipes to snowy white- 
ness after they were moulded. The soft black clay, 
brought from New Jersey, was ground to the proper 
fineness in a vat outside, where a patient horse plodded 
round and round at the end of a long sweep. An Eng- 
lishman named James A. Smith, (always distinguished 
among us by the title of "Pipemaker Smith,") with his 
sons Gabriel and Peter, made the pipes, using many a 
mould of curious shape, brought from England, with the 
English rose and thistle printed on the side of the bowl. 
AVhatever fantastic shapes were given the pipes, there 
was always the little knob at the bottom of the bowl, 
thoughtfully provided that the smoker might rest his 
pipe upon it for a moment while he took a drink of 
beer, or joined in the jolly songs of an English inn. 
This business was carried on by the sons of James A. 
Smith for some years after the death of the latter, but 
some time in the eighties the factory-made pipes drove 
out the more expensive handicraft, and it was given up, 
It was to this house that, twenty years later, in 1879, 
came a fearful visitation of malignant diphtheria, in 
wdiich five or six of the family died within a few weeks' 
time. The house was quarantined, and such was the 
fear of contagion that it was impossible to obtain a 
nurse to perform the necessary work. Then a young 
minister and his wife, not long married, and just settled 
in Westport, went to the afiiicted house and stayed un- 
till the disease had run its course, caring for the dying 
and the dead. Such precautions were taken that no 
other cases of diphtheria occurred, and the brave volun- 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 47i) 

teer nurses escaped without harm. It was this act that 
so stirred Colonel Lee's enthusiasm, always ready to re- 
spond to the note of courage and self-sacrifice. ''That 
is what I call heroism," said he, as he grasped the young 
minister by the hand. 

This year 1859, must have buried the last of our pi- 
oneers, Dr. Diadorus Holcomb, aged seventy-nine, who 
had seen so much, and done so much, in the life of the 
little town since he first cast in his fortunes with it. 
Dying in September, he never heard the news of the 
capture and execution, in Virginia, of John Brown, a 
man whom he must have often seen upon our streets, or 
at the county fair. 

The connection of John Brown with Westport his- 
tory is but incidental, only that of a place through 
which he and his family often passed, in the strange 
variety of their strange lives. Nevertheless, the man 
was well known here, from the time that he came off 
the ferry boat, one day in the summer of 1849, driving 
a herd of Devon cattle, of a breed finer than any thing 
seen in Essex county up to that time. It was known 
that he was taking them over thirty miles into the in- 
terior, where be had settled on some of Gerrit Smith's 
land in North Elba, surrounded by a little colony of 
freed negroes whom he was trying to teach the grim 
secret of wresting a livelihood from that granite soil. 
Almost universal sj^mpathy with this attempt seems to 
have been felt at this time, together with shrewd Yan- 
kee head-shakings over the probable, (and actual,) fail- 
are of the enterprise. The writer has failed to find 



480 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

traces of aiiythiDg corresponding to a "station on the 
underground railroad" in Westport, for forwarding es- 
caped slaves to Canada, and is inclined to believe that 
this is rather because secrecy was little needed. Any 
negro might be one of the North Elba freedmen, and 
his passage through the town might be safely winked 
at so long as there was no question of a United States 
marshal on the road with a warrant — an extremity 
which never occurred. This refers entirely to the first 
five years of John Brown's residence in Essex county, 
before his departure for Kansas, during which time 
most if not all of the freed negroes accepted land in 
North Elba. During these five 3^ears anti-slavery sen- 
timent ran high in Westport, as it did in all the North, 
and anti-slavery meetings, with the usual speeches and 
resolutions, were often held. After the Kansas troubles 
there was a change, the North beginning to hold her 
breath before the rising flame of sectional feeling so 
easily fanned into a mighty conflagration. Ir- 
responsible speech began to be restrained. Wise and 
good men, who would have given their lives to prevent 
the civil war which followed, who often gave them after- 
ward to help to bring it to a close, strove to modify 
popular passion by counselling moderation. Remem- 
bering this will help us to understand the significance 
of events, and to realize that although anti-slavery 
meetings were not so frequent in the four or five years 
directly preceding the war, it was from no lack of con- 
viction or courage on the part of our people. 

But for the years from 1849 to 1S55» there is no 



HISTORY OF WE ST 1*0 RT 481 

(lonbt that Jolm Brown was a popular man in West- 
port, and oue willinoly listened to as often as he came. 
He never made public speeches, but when it was known 
that he was at the inn, to stay a single night on his 
way in or out of the mountains the men would gather 
in the bar room and discuss politics and slavery with 
liim. Men who have thus conversed with him say that 
he was noticeably quiet in his manner, never showing 
the least trace of excitement, and far more patient with 
contradiction than the average participant in political 
discussion. He talked in a low, steady voice, and his 
expression w^as pleasing and winning. It is told that 
a frequent opponent of his was the landlord of the inn, 
whose views were not at all those of John Brown, but 
that he always gave in at last without anger to the quiet 
persistence of Brown's arguments. 

At this time John Brown was a man something past 
lifty, tall, erect, with a smooth shaven face and a stern 
mouth, not at all like the wild eyed fanatic, with 
long gray beard and bushy hair, who is seen in so many 
of his pictures. No doubt these represent him at a 
later stage, after the scenes of bloodshed in Kansas; 
but the John Brown remembered in Westport, who 
talked so courteously and so freely with the village 
men, was like the portrait reproduced by Katharine 
Elizabeth McClellan in her excellent little book, "A 
Hero's Grave." After his return from Kansas in 1856 
I cannot find trace of so many evenings of argument at 
the village inn. Perhaps he was tired of talking since 
he had come to believe more in the force of pikes and 



482 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

guns, perhaps the men were shy of him, or perhaps I 
have not yet struck the right vein of reminiscence. 
Most of the men who knew him here are dead, but Mr. 
James A. Allen owned and managed the steamboat 
wharf from 1854 until after the war, and thus saw, with 
keen, observant eyes, all the comings and goings of the 
travellers of that time. He remembers John Brown 
with much personal admiration, as a pleasant man to 
meet, and one who knew a great deal about sheep and 
cattle. He remembers perfectly the time when the 
tombstone of John Brown's grandfather came to the 
wharf, and lay for a time in the freight room, before it 
was carried to North Elba. It came from Vergennes, 
by the steam ferry, a boat upon whose sides was 
painted the name ^'Nonpareil,'' but which commonly 
went by the name of "the Dodger." 

The story of this tombstone is a strange one, and 
contains much revelation of the character of John 
Brown. It is a thin marble slab, which stood at the 
head of his grandfather's grave in Torrington, Conn., 
the place where John Brown himself was born, 
and where all his people lay buried. When it first 
came into Westport it bore but one inscription, — "In 
Memory of Capt. John Brown Who Died At New York 
Sept. ye 3, 1776, in the 48 year of his Age." This 
grandfather, whose name and title were the same as 
John Brown's of North Elba, had died as a soldier of 
the Bevolution, a prisoner in the hands of the British. 
His grandson had always felt the greatest admiration 
and reverence for him, feeling that he had died in the 



mSTORY OF WE Sr PORT 483 

cause of liberty, and he had conceived the idea of hav- 
ing his tombstone stand at the head of his own grave, 
which he had decided should be made on his farm. 

It must have been in the summer of 1857 that the 
stone was brought from Connecticut, and though I am 
not quite sure of this, I think that John Brown himself 
took it to Wadhams Mills and there had the name of 
his son Frederick, "murdered at Osawatamie for his ad- 
herence to the cause of freedom," as he dictated to the 
marble-cutter, cut on the reverse side, then carried it 
to North Elba. There he did not set it in the ground — 
why should he, since no grave had yet been dug? — but 
put it on the porch at the side of the door, leaning up 
against the house, and there it stood for two years, the 
family going in and out beside it all that time. Marked 
already with the name of a son and brother who had 
died a violent death, standing avowedly waiting for the 
name of the father to be cut upon it, — there are people 
who would not like to brush past such a stone every 
time they went in and out of the door, twenty times a 
day, but the Brown family did not cultivate nerves. 
John Brown indicated the spot where his grave should 
be dug by cutting with his own hands, before he left 
the last time for the south, in the side of the great 
boulder near which he had built his house, the letters 
"J. B." Think of his wife and daughters looking out 
of the window at him as he knelt there on the ground, 
chipping away at the side of the flinty rock with his 
unskilled hands, marking the place where they should 
burv him when all was over ! 



484 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

It was the 16th of October, 1859, when John Brown 
began his attempt at the forcible Hberation of the 
slaves of the south bj the seizure of the United States 
Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va. He was captured, 
taken to Charlestown, and there hung, December 2. In 
the mean time, Thomas Wentworth Higgiuson, who 
had seen John Brown in Boston and become his earn- 
est friend, came up to North Elba and took Mrs. Brown 
to Virginia with him, that she might see her husband 
before he died. They went from North Elba to Keese- 
ville on a buckboard, taking the steamboat at Port 
Kent. After Brown's execution Governor Wise deliv- 
ered the body to Mrs. Brown, and she came with it to 
New York, up the Hudson, then on the Vermont rail- 
road to Vergennes. So late in the season as this no 
line boats ran on Lake Champlain. They obtained 
teams in Vergennes to carry them to the lake at Adams' 
ferry, and there they crossed over to Barber's Point, 
coming into the village late on Monday, December 5th. 
They went to Person's Hotel, the central inn of the 
place, and stayed there over night, I have recently 
heard foolish tales to the effect that John Brown's body 
was not allowed a resting place in Westport for even 
one night, but men living at the time, who were in the 
hotel parlor and bar-room that evening, assure me that 
these are the facts in the case. The body was received 
with all the respect and reverence due to a man well- 
known among them, who had given his life for a cause 
the righteousness of which they had often heard up- 
held by his own voice. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 485 

The party consisted of the widow, Mrs. Mary A. 
BrowD, Mr. Wendell Phillips, the famous Boston ora- 
tor, Frank B. Sanborn, the historian and some 
others. The next day it rained, a steady, icy down- 
pour, and the party did not set out until late in the 
day, arriving in Elizabethtown at about six o'clock 
Tuesday evening. Westport conveyances carried the 
whole party all the way, I believe, to North Elba, one 
of the men who went with his horses being Albert P. 
Cole, and another, I am told, Mr. Asa Viall. From 
Wadhams, Mr. Daniel Braman, then one of the princi- 
pal merchants, and the young physician, Dr. George T. 
Stevens, went out through the storm to stand by the 
grave the next day. I have heard that the hearse which 
was owned by the town, (after an old New England 
custom, then almost obsolete,) was refused to Mrs. 
Brown for carrying her husband's body to North Elba, 
but it is extremely doubtful that Mrs. Brown ever made 
such a request, and if it was refused it was no evidence 
of disrespect, as the hearse was old and out of repair, 
seldom or never used, and not considered a tit convey- 
ance for any respectable funeral. It is true that the 
bells of the churches were not tolled as the funeral 
train passed through, bat neither can I find that they 
were tolled in Elizabethtown, where a deputation of the 
principal citizens met Mr. Phillips at the Mansion 
House, while a guard of four young men watched be- 
side the body in the Court House that night. 

The storm in which the cortege went from Westport 
to Elizabethtown delayed upon the lake the Rev. Joshua 



4Se HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Young of BurliDgtoDjSo that he did not reach the John 
Brown farm until December 8, the morning of the burial, 
He was the only clergyman present, and conducted the 
service, while Wendell Phillips spoke to the assembled 
]people. Upon Mr. Phillips' return to AYestport, he 
was urged by some of the principal citizens to deliver 
an address here, but he answered that he had promised 
to speak in Yergennes, and felt that he could spend no 
more time. He spoke there the next night, and a large 
number from Westport went over to hear him, crossing 
at Barber's Point in a south-east gale, the wind blow- 
ing the boat far out of her course to the north, so that 
they were obliged to land somewhere in the fields. The 
names of Dr. William H. Ivichardson, Ealph A. Love- 
land, Albert and Harry Cole, James A. Allen, Asa Yiall 
and F. H. Page have been given me as belonging to 
this party, but there were others whose uames have 
been forgotten. They stayed over night in Yergennes, 
and the speech of Wendell Phillips, as well as the re-, 
cent terrible events, had tremendous force in mould- 
ing public opinion in this region. On the day of John 
Brown's execution in Yirginia, Yictor Hugo was Avrit-. 
ing in France, "Poiitically speaking, the execution of 
Brown will be an irrevocable mistake. It will deal the 
union a concealed w^ound which will finally sunder the 
States. Let America consider that there is one thing 
more shocking than Cain killiug xAbel— it is Washings 
ton killing Spartacus." 

These things Westport people thoroughly believed, 
aud excitement ran higher and higher. About a month 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 487 

after John Brown's body passed through the 
town, a large mass meeting was held at Wadhams Mills 
for the expression of abolition sentiment. Mrs. Brown 
came out from North Elba, having been invited to at- 
tend a supper given at the hotel for her benefit, and 
was entertained at the home of Mr. Cvrenus Payne. At 
this time she went to the marble cutter there, Mr. Ben- 
jamin Albert Barrett, and engaged him to go to North 
Elba and cut her husband's name on the old tombstone 
which had stood there waiting for it for two years and 
more. Mr. Barrett went, and the stone was taken from 
the porch into the warm kitchen of the farm-house, 
where he cut the name of John Brown under that of his 
grandfather, and below that the name of his son Oliver, 
while the name of Watson Brown was cut under that 
of Frederick on the other side. Watson and Oliver 
had been killed at Harper's Ferry. Thus John Brown's 
own plans for his epitaph in stone were carried out. 
while his soul went marching on. The marble slab was 
set in the ground as soon as the frost was out in the 
spring, and there it stands yet, visited by thousands. 

The inscription, — "John Brown, 1859," — so deeply 
cut on the upper face of the immense granite boulder 
at the foot of which John Brown lies buried, was cut 
there after the war, in the summer of 1866. Col. Fran- 
cis L. Lee, who had served in the war as colonel of the 
44th Massachusetts Volunteers, accompanied by his 
wife, his son, Francis W. Lee, his daughter Alice, the 
Hon. George S. Hale of Boston, and Mr. Andrew J. 
Daniels of Westport, went out and stayed a week at 



48S HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

"Scott's," (now the Mountain View House,) wliile Mr. 
Daniels cut the letters and figures deep into the rock. 
"The work took many days," says Mr. Francis W. Lee, 
in a letter published in the Essex County Republi- 
can in March of 1876, "owing to the extreme 
hardness of the rock in which the letters were cut. 
This same hardness will protect the mighty boulder 
from the hand of the vandal relic seelvcr for all time." 
It was the frailty of the ancient tablet, the edges of 
which were worn away before it was brought to West- 
port, which suggested this idea to Col. Lee. 

In 1859 the Essex County Medical Society w^as re- 
organized. This society is known to have been estab^ 
lished before 1814, since in that year Dr. Alexander 
Morse of Elizabethtown was sent as a delegate to the 
State Medical Society. In 1821 Dr. Diadorus Holcouib 
of Westport represented the county societ}-. Westport 
physicians who have been presidents since 1859 are 
Abiathar Pollard, 1868 ; Conant Sawyer, 1876 ; Dr. Pol- 
lard again in 1882 ; and Pliny W. Barber in 1884 
Other members from Westport have been Dr. Samuel 
F. Dickenson, 1881 ; Dr. Warren E. Pattison. 1881 ; Dr. 
Frank E. Sweatt, 1882 ; and doubtless the subsequent 
doctors who have sojourned among us — Dr. F. T. De- 
Lano, Dr. Jesse Braman, Dr. J. W. M. Shattuck, Dr. 
Beuben Irish and Dr. Hennessey, — though we have not 
had access to the records of the societ}' to substantiate 
this very probable st^^teraent, 



BIST our OF WESTrOHT 489 

1800 

Town Meetioo: at B. J. Person's, 

Samuel Root, Supervisor. 

Hiram H. Downey, Clerk. 

William F. ChattertoD, Justice. 

Noel Merrill, Assessor. 

Joseph E. Smith. Highway Commissioner. 

Albert P= Cole and Philetus D. Merriam- PiX)r Masters. 

Dan S. Cuttin;^, Herbert U- Cady, Edwin R. Pierson, In- 
'spectors of Election. 

James A. Allen, Collector. 

James A. Allen. Cyrenus R. P-ayne. Jeremiah Flinn. Al- 
bert P. Cole, George C. Smith, Constables. 

Pathmasters.— Alfred Carpenter, Moses Coll. Israel Pat- 
tisou, Peter Ferris, Augustus Holt, Jeremiah Flinn, Asa 
Viall, William P. Merriam, William Harris, Luther Augier, 
George W. Sturtevaut, Daniel W. Braman, Jason Dunster, 
Sylvester Young, Artemas Hartwell, Abram G. Steel, EJar- 
vey Smith, Barney Boyle. Curtis Prouty, Harvey Howard, 
John G. Greeley. F. B. Howard, Solomon Stock well, Lu- 
'oan Hubbard, Morrill Giobs, John E. Smith, Franklin 
Bennett, William Pierce, Samuel Pierce, Horace Royce. 

It was iu the fall of 1860 that two little boj-s, about 
nine aud teu years old, took a sled and weuifc coasting 
down "the lake hill" above the steamboat wharf. This 
is very steep, aud the danger of sliding oW into the wa- 
ter has always made it a forbidden place to 
the childreii of careful parents. There was enough 
snow for good coasting, but the lake had not ye.fc frozen 
-over. The two children could not steer their sled, and 
at the foot of the hill it carried them off into the water, 
where both were drowned. One boy was named Fran- 
kie Cole^ and the other belonged to a family named 
Turner. They were not missed for some time, but at 
last search revealed the treacherous sled floating on 
J-op of the water, and men dragged the water tbat night 



490 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

until the little bodies were recovered. This incident 
has given the lake hill an ominous terror to all West- 
port children since then as a sliding place. 

For some years the school facilities of the village 
had been seen to be quite inadequate to the rightful de- 
mands of the rising generation. The old Academy had 
long fallen short of the renown of its early days, and 
most of the primary work was done in the district 
schools of the village, district No. 3 lying on the south 
side of the bridge and district No. 2 on the north side. 
In 1860 these two districts were united, and a union 
school meeting was held December 7th, in the base- 
ment of the M. E. church, with John H. Low as mode- 
rator and Aaron B. Mack, Clerk. Three trustees were 
elected, William Frisbie for one year, Lorenzo 
Gibbs for two years and D. L. xlllen for three years, 
and Jerry Flinn as clerk. The two school houses 
were sold, and both have been used as dwelling houses 
ever since. The stoves and benches were reserved, and 
the benches at least must have had some value by this 
time as registers of the autographs of the various boys 
who had tried the edge of their jack knives upon them. 
The school houses were expected to bring |500, and the 
Barnabas Myrick house on North street, which had 
been in the hands of Marks & Hand of Elizabethtown 
since the settlement of the Myrick estate, was bought 
for a new school house, for the sum of $1,200. A board 
of education was elected, consisting of Harry N. Cole^ 
Aaron B. Mack, James Walker Eddy, Victor C. Spen- 
cer^ the two clergymen, the Rev. Isaac C.Fenton of the 



mSTOAT OF WJuSTJ'ORT 491 

M. E. Glnireli and the Bev. F, l\ Laug of the Baptist, 
Hud the two doctors, Dr. LaDdou and Dr. William H. 
Richardson. The Myrick house was remodeled, fitted 
up for four departments, and used untjl the building of 
the new school house in 1889. The first principal of 
the new union school was Luther Boardman J^^ewell.-'" 
He was born in Jay, N. Y., jn 1834, attended school 
in Keesevilie and graduated from the TTniversity of 
Vermont in 1860. Coming to Westport the same year, 
he spent the remainder of his life in the place, with the 
exception of a few years' teaching in Crown Point. He 
was principal of the school about ten years. From 

♦This Newell family is not the same as that of JEbenezer Newell, ^It^ough there 
is no doubt a distant relationship. Captain Daniel Newell was born jn Farmingr- 
towo, Conn., in i7';S He moved to Tinmouth, Vt., wher^ he became a captain of 
artillery, and then to Burke, Vt., in iSoo. In Burke he was one of the most prom- 
inent men, selectman and justice of the peace. The description of Capt Daniel 
Newell in the town history of Burke reads as thoui^h it might have been written 
for his great grandson, L. B. Newell, as it represents him as tall an,a etbct in his 
carriage, sociable and benevolent in his disposition, and an ardent Raptist, adding- 
that no man was more respecttd and beloved in his own lo^vn. His wife was a 
Curtis, of the same family as that of t eorge William Curiis, and this must account 
^or the fact. th^t L. B. Newell bore a likeness to the pictures of George William 
Curtis, strong enough tp.have sometimes been remarke4 by strangers. Capt. Dan- 
iel Newell died in iS 24 in Burke He had ten children, one of whom, Rufus. 
whose wife was a Beckvyith, came into the to ath o|Jay wiih his son Daniel a->ou,t 
1820. There Daniel the second married Marv Blish, and they had seven children. 

Martha married Capt. John Stratton Boynton. Children: Ele.cta^ Jqhn, Lincoln, 
Mary, Newell and Beulah. 

JLuther Boirdman married Samh Purmort. 

Beulah married Benjamin S. Bull. 

Isaac married Hattie Bultrick. 

Electa died at tl,ie age of ihree. 

Rosalia married Henry Chasi and live^ in Mianeaoolis, 

Arthur Daniel married Lottie Van Ornam, and his made his home in Westpott, 
having^ been a teacher for some years His children are Isaac Harrison, Maiy, 
(Trace and Daniel, The two sons are the only descerdants of Rufys Newell who 
bear the same siirnajng. 



492 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

1876 to 1882 he was School Commissioner for this dis- 
trict, and was afterward Institute Instructor. He was 
for several 3^ears agent of the Ticonderoga Pulp and 
Paper Company, buying large quantities of pulp wood 
all through northern New York and Canada. He was 
supervisor of the town at the time of his death, which 
occurred Jan. 23d, 1896. Westport has never had a 
more public-spirited citizen, and his natural benevo- 
lence is shown by the fact that, having no children of 
his own, he adopted three orphan girls, giving them all 
liberal educations. 

In this old "Myrick house" school one whole gene- 
ration received its education. Before Mr. Newell re- 
turned from Crown Point, one very successful teacher 
was Mr. Hyde, of Maine. In 1874 came Curtis Carlos 
Gove, just graduated from Middlebury College, and 
conducted an excellent school until 1879, when he went 
to Beeman Academy, New Haven, Vt., whither a num- 
ber of his older pupils followed him. He afterward 
took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, being 
ordained in 1891, and is now Rector of St. Michael's 
Church and Head Master of Cary Collegiate Institute, 
Oakfield, N. Y. 

Then came Edward Hooker Baxter, of Middlebury 
College, class of 1876, and taught one year. He is now 
a physician in Hyde Park, Mass. He was followed by 
Thomas A. Wasson of Mineville, now a physician in 
Elizabethtown. Then Edmund Conde Lane, Univers- 
ity of Vermont, class of 1882, one year. He afterward 
practiced law in South Omaha, Neb., and died there 



Ill STORY OF WE Sr PORT 403 

in 1898. Then Charles F. Chisbolm of Plattsburgh, a 
graduate of Cornell, and Julius Yalorious Sturtevant, 
Middlebury, 1885, whose year was finished by Miss 
Mary Farusworth. Then Mr. John Lyon, who is now 
practicing law near Rockville Centre, L. I., and in 188(5 
Mr. Fred Varney Lester, a graduate of Colgate Uni- 
versity. The new school house was built while he was 
principal, and the school raised to a high standard of 
efficiency. In 1895 he was elected School Commis- 
sioner, receiving a second election three years after- 
ward. In 1899 he resigned his couimissionership to 
accept the position of Principal of the Ticonderoga 
schools, and removed from Westport after a residence 
of thirteen years. Succeeding principals have been 
Mr. Kennedy, two years, Mr. George W. Campbell, of 
Toronto, one year, and Mr. Edgar WilleyAmes, of Wil- 
liams College, the present Principal. 

The first teacher in the intermediate department of 
the "Myrick" school was Mrs. L. B. Newell, who taught 
there fof a number of years. Other teachers in the 
lower departments were Almira Greeley, Cornelia Clark, 
Myra Small, Sarah Richards, Clara Ensign, Alice Doug- 
lass, Mary Farnsworth, Em uia Sharp, Annie Sharp, Kate 
Newell, Minnie Newell, Ida Bacou, Liua Barton, Lyle 
Cross, John Hoffnagle, Kate Rogers and Mary E. Clark. 

The new school house was built in 1889, as the fig- 
ures on its slate roof attest, on a fine site near the shore 
of the lake. The architect was Cornelius Remington of 
Ticonderoga, and it has since received two additions, 
and the accommodations are still declared to be insuf- 



494 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

ticent for the yearly increasing number of pupils. In 
the new school house, the assistants in the Academic 
department have been Miss Henrietta C. Royce, Miss 
Ella Feehau and Miss Daisy Bruffee. Teachers of the 
Training Class, Miss Mary K. Harrington and Miss 
Robsou. In the intermediate department, Miss Electa 
Boynton, Mrs. Frances Ramsey and Miss Gertrude 
Stevens; in the primary. Miss Marian Ferris, Miss 
Elda Fish, Miss Susie Bruffee and Miss Florence Shel- 
don. The faculty now consists of Mr. Ames, Miss 
Bruffee, Miss Robson, Miss Stevens, Miss Torrance, 
Miss Sheldon. We are wont to claim that there is 
no better school in the county than the Westport High 
School. 

This brings the account of the the school up to the 
present year, and we must now go back to 1860, and 
take a look at the town as it was before the war. 
Frankness demands the admission that it was then as 
dull a little place as could be found on all the lake, if 
measured by the standards of a busy and money-mak- 
ing world. The decline in lumber had come many 
years before, and now it had just been made plain that 
no one knew the secret of turning our iron into gold. 
The population of the town in 1860 was but 1,981, 
which showed a decrease of 371 in the last decade. 
This decrease also continued steadily for another ten 
years, until in 1870 the town numbered 775 less than it 
did in 1850. 

The business centre of the place was then, as it is 
now, on Main Street^ just north of Washington, in the 



HISTORY OF WESrrORT 4f)5 

same localit}- where Charles Hatch had opened the first 
store fifty years before. Here, on the east side of the 
street, stood two business blocks, with a nuQiber of de- 
tached buildings on both side of the street. Opposite 
the stores, on the corner of the present Library lawn, 
stood Person's Hotel, advertised as "the Lake House," 
a large two-story building, painted white, with double 
piazzas and a long range of offices and stables behind 
it. A stone walk led across the road to the hotel, and 
at its eastern end stood the town pump. The well be- 
neath it was covered by a mill stone taken from one of 
the old grist mills, and the stone lies there yet, although 
the town pump has been unknown for forty years. 
South of the hotel stood another block of stores, on the 
site of the "Over the Way" of the Westport Inn. Here 
was Hiram Downey's tin shop, and, (perhaps a little 
later,) the drug store kept by Dr. William H Richard- 
son, his advertisement in the county paper covering 
also a large stock of furniture, with particular attention 
called to Magenta Dyes and Kerosene Lamps, both re- 
cent inventions at the time, and a postscript, added 
in 1863, saying that the doctor would examine applicants 
for invalid pensions. In the blocks across the roadF.H. 
Page, in the brick store on the corner, kept a stock of gen - 
eral merchandise, his principal rivals being the firm of 
J. W. <fc C. H. Eddy, a little further to the north. Mr. 
Page and C. H. Eddy were afterward partners in busi- 
ness, and later still Mr. Page became a member of the 
firm of Groves, Page & Co., Troy, N. Y. The corner 
.store was afterward owned by C. H. Eddy & Son, then 



496 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

by F. H. Eclcly alone, and after the death of Mr, F. H. 
Eddy in 1901, the business which had been continuous 
in the Eddy family for more than forty years, was sold 
to Smith & Richards, Mr. George Barton Richards 
being brother-in-law of Mr. Eddy. 

Other business places in this part of the village in 
1860 were the drug store of Charles B. Hatch, John C. 
Osborne's harness shop, Peter P. Bacon's shoe ^ shop, 
Alviu Davis's hardware store, and William Richards, 
general merchandise, in the building now occupied by 
his son, Henry H. Richards. Up the hill, on the south 
side of Washington street, Edmund J. Smith had a 
carriage and blacksmith shop. W^illiam Douglass had 
a blacksmith shop on the site of the barns of the W^est- 
port Inn, and W^allace Olds another on Douglass street, 
on the north si'de of the bridge. G. W. Strauahan kept 
a tailor's shop, and there was a milliner in the flat over 
Hatch's drug store, Mrs. H. P. Potter, followed by Mrs. 
Harriett Todd, as we find by an advertisement of 1862. 
Aaron Clark was a carpenter and builder at this time, 
and had a shop near the large tenement house above 
the steamboat wharf, while the Joubert brothers had a 
marble shop on the bank of the brook west of the 
bridge. The principal business north of the bridge was 
done by D. L. Allen at the Douglass store and wharf, 
while his brother, James A. Allen, owned the southern 
wharf. The line boats which came in daily to the last 
named wharf were the Canada and the United States. 
The post master at this time, and for a long term of 
years, was -John H. Low, and the post office was to be 



IHSrORY OF WESTPORT 497 

found exactly where you uow find it. There were two 
hotels.. William Richards keeping the Richards House on 
the north side of the bridge, on the "Ira Henderson 
lot," on North street. The house was burned in 1893, 
and the place is now nearly covered by a block of new 
stores. The physicians were Dr. William H. Richard- 
son and Dr. Abiathar Pollard, the latter returDiug to the 
place in 1861. 

1 believe the only milling industry at Wadhams at 
that time was the grist mill, operated by Deacon Wad- 
hams. The store afterward occupied by Henry C. 
xlvery was kept by Daniel W. Braman, and at some 
time not tar from this period the brick store was known 
as the "Union Store," from the fact that fifty or sixty 
of the farmers of the neighborhood attempted a co-op- 
erative store in this building. The experiment was 
tried for a number of years, but at length the business 
became involved, and it passed into the hands of Ham- 
ilton Sanders. 

Up to this time the old-fashioned Yankee peddler 
was a valuable institution throughout all this rural lake 
country. Even a pack peddler often carried fine dress 
goods in his pack, and was, more often than not, a re- 
spectable, native born citizen, willing to earn his honest 
penny by adapting himself to circumstances, and carry- 
ing the mountain to Mahomet by seeking out his cus- 
tomers at their ow^n doors. Many of us can remember 
treasured pieces of our grandmothers' finery which we 
w^ere told had been bought from such-and-such a ped- 
dler, who made his regular trips, perhaps up and down 



1 



49S HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

both sides of the lake, recognized and trusted hke any 
settled merchant. This is all changed now, and a pack 
peddler means nothing but a semi-tramp who speaks 
broken Italian, and excites any conscientious and ob- 
serving dog to frenzy until he is sent off down the road. 
But forty years ago many a bright young fellow Ivegan 
as a pack peddler, then by industry and economy rose 
to the ownership of a cart and team of horses, and then 
invested his savings in some dry-goods store which he 
had observed upon his travels as furnishing a good 
opening for an enterprising young man, perhaps send- 
ing out peddlers' carts over the country in his turn. 
One of the dangers of the old-time peddler was that of 
being murdered for the contents of his pack, in some 
remote district where night overtook him before he 
could reach a respectable inn or farm-house, and there 
are tales of such incidents told by our oldest story^ i 

tellers. | 

Then business reckonings were made in shillings 
much more commonly than they are now, and "six- 
pence" and "nine-pence" were terms often heard. The 
difference between the York shilling and the Vermont 
shillings still needed careful mention with the older mer- f 

chants, and was the occasion of frequent jokes, to the be- | 

wilderment of youngsters in school who were learning | 

only the decimal system. 

As for the churches, it would seem that at this period 
they were quite as prosperous as they can be said to be 
now, with attendance and membership, as a whole, 
rather in advance of present conditions. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 499 

From 1841 to 1862 the Congregational church at 
Wadhams had four pastors. Eev. Charles E. Spooner 
remained thirteen years, from 1841 to 1854. He was 
followed by Rev. J. A. Woodhull, who resigned in 1858, 
and was followed by Rev. S. J. M. Lord, and he, in 
1860, by Rev. Henry Lancashire. The church num- 
bered in 1857 one hundred and three members, but soon 
afterward began a declension in membership, owing to 
unfortunate dissensions which arose in the church, 
chiefly attributable, it would seem, to the injudicious 
measures of an unwise pastor. Many left the church 
entirely, some joining other denominations, most of 
them never to return. A list of male members attend- 
ing a church meeting in 1860 is given as follows : 

Edmund O. Hodgkins, Henry Barton Royce, Francis 
Pierce, Samuel W. Pierce, Samuel Pierce, Levi Pierce, 
H. N. Reynolds, AVilliam S. Flack, Oscar M. Boutwell, 
Aaron B. Mack, George T. Stevens, Jesse Saunders, 
Joel F. Whitney, 2nd, xA.lmond Clark, Egbert Braman, 
N. M. Clark, W. F. Chatterton, William Hardy, B. F. 
AVhitney, John R. Whitney, Sylvester Young, William 
Barnard, Joel French, John S. Stanton, AVilliam L. 
Wadhams, Thomas Hadley, Piatt Sheldon, Humphrey 
Sherman, George W. Sturtevant, Joseph Ordway. The 
deacons were G. W. Sturtevant and Wm. L. Wadhams. 

The trustees of the Baptist church elected since 1839, 
(their names having been alredy given up to that time,) 
in order of their election, were as follows : Miles M'F. 
Sawyer, Dan H. Kent, Albert P. Cole, Jonathan Nich- 
ols, Ralph A. Loveland, Luther dingier, Edmund J. 



500 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Smith, William D. Holcomb, James A. Allen, Henr^^ 
D. Banney, Reuel W. Arnold, Merlin Angier, Lorenzo 
Gibbs, Freeborn H. Page, Henry N. Cole, Harvey 
Pierce. The pastors from that time to this had been 
Eev. Cyrus W. Hodges, Rev. J. Birchard, Rev. S. W. 
Whitnej^, Rev. Thomas Brandt, (a descendant of the 
famous Joseph Brant, the chief of the Mohawks during 
the Revolution,) Rev. Thomas G. Wright, Rev, O. W. 
Moxley and Rev. F. P. Lang. 

The preachers in the M. E. church since its first es- 
tablishment as a station, in 1839, had been Rev. John 
W. Belknapp, 1839; Rev. W^illiam M. Chipp, 1841; 
Rev. John Thomson, 1842 ; Rev. Hiram Chase, 1844; 
Rev Richard T, Wade, 1845 ; Rev. Valentine Brown, 
1846; Rev. William W. Pierce, 1847; Rev. P. H. Hul- 
burd, 1848 ; Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy, 1849 ; Rev, 
W'illiam H. Tiffany, 1851 ; Rev. Charles*^L. Hagar, 1852 ; 
Rev. I. F. Yates, 1854 ; Rev. Peter R. Storer, 1856 ; 
Rev. WilHam W'. Foster, 1857 ; Rev. Isaac C. Fenton, 
1859 \ Rev, T. W. Harwood, X86X, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 501 



IX. 

Civil AVar to 1875. 
John Brown's body lay mouldering in the ^rave, be- 
neath his grandfather's ancient tombstone, on the North 
Elba farm. Sixteen months after it had been borne 
through Westport, Fort Sumpter was fired upon, and 
the war began. This pariod formed in every sense a 
distinct era in the life of the town. Ah'eady declining 
so far as commerce and manufacture were concerned, 
the withdrawal of more than a hundred young men in 
the best years of their lives, some for one year, some for 
four years, some for ever, left the little town to a quiet 
nearly approaching stagnation. But underneath the 
outward quiet the most 'intense emotions prevailed. 
The principal events in life were the daily arrival of 
steamboat or stage, with the mail which contained news 
from the front, or with the arrival or depar- 
ture of soldiers. In summer the boats came twice a 
day, a night boat and a day boat, and in winter the 
stages came in once a day if the weather permitted. 
There was no railroad, no telegraph, no express office 
until after the war was over. Hence there was a re- 
moteness from the seat of war, and a delay in the re- 
ception of news, greater than that which was felt at the 
time of the Cuban war. Reliable news of battles came 
sometimes weeks after the event, in soldiers' letters or 



502 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

m newspapers, although there were sure to be disqui-. 
etiug rumors imiqediately a,fter every great battle, to 
make women's hair turn graj' with suspense as thev 
waited to learn the truth. 

But still the town life, of course, went on with the 
same outward semblance. The men elected to. office a| 
the March town meeting before the actual outbreak of 
the war, were as follows : 

1861. 

Town Meeting held at H. J. Persoris, 

Samuel Root. Supervisor. 

Bartoa B. Richards, Clerk. 

Jason Braman, .Justice. 

Daniel W. Braman, Assessor. 

William Frisbie, Highway Gommissioner. 

Jonathan F. Braisted, Eieuel W. Arnold, Poor Masters. 

Charles W. Holcomb, Cicero Sayre, Samuel W. Williams,, 
Inspectors of Jllection. 

James A. Allen, Collector. 

James A. Alien, Cyrenus R Payne, Jeremiah Flinn,, 
Willard Ingalls, E^dmond J. Smith, Constables. 

Path masters.. — ijenry Wood, Dennis Persons, Israel, 
jPattison, Charles Pattison, William Frisbie^ Jeremiah 
Flinn, William, P. Merriam, William Harris, James M. 
Whallon,. Simeon Miller, William F. Chatterton, Charles 
Dunster, Sylvester Young, Da^id R. Woodruff, Fphraim, 
Hill, Johnson Hill, Marcus Hoisington, Joseph Tryon. 
Aaron B. Mack, Abram Greeley, Alvin Burt, ira Allen, E. 
Westcott, Henry Sherman, Isaac Lampman, Grrin Taylor,. 
James E. Barnes, Martin Pierce, Henry R^yce. 

Voted to have in future but one Road Commissioner. 

Edwin R. Person appointed Inspector of Ejection in 
place of Samuel Williams, absent, perhaps on a boating 
trip. 

Peter Ferris appointed Poor Master in place ot Reuel 
Arnold, resigned, 

A,rnold opened a recruiting office that summer, raised a 
company and left for the front in September. The towi^ 
vecoi'ds. of the next four years will here be ^iven as usual. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT o03 

186^. 

Town Meetinof at H. J. Persons. 

Samuel Root, Supervisor. 

Barton B. Richards, Clerk. 

Aaron Clark, Justice. 

Harry J. Person, Assessor. 

Philetus D. Merriam and James A. Allen, Poor Masters. 

Hinkley Coll, Harvey P. Potter, Edwin B. Low, Inspec- 
tors of Election. 

John Steele, Collector. 

John Steele, James A. Allen, Harvey P. Potter, Kit- 
tred^e Cross, Jeremiah Flinn, Constables. 

Town Meeting adjourned to the Armory. 

James A. Allen appointed Collector in place of John 
Steele, deceased. 

Pathmasters. — Henry Sheldon, Granville Stone, Henry 
E. Warren, Henry Frisbie, Hiram H. Downey, Nathaniel 
Allen, William Mclntyre, William P. Merriam, William T. 
Williams, M. P. Whallon, Simeon Miller, Eli Farnsworth, 
Joseph E. Smith, W. W. Finney, D. R. Woodruff, Calvin 
D. Pratt, Levi Harris, Barnard Boyle, Jr., Abner Slaugh- 
ter, Matthew H Mack, John J. Greeley, John Ormiston, 
Solomon Stock well, Luman F. Hubbard, Abram Sherman, 
Zelotus Fuller. Austio Taylor, Cortez Bennett, George W. 
Vaughan, James Fortune. 

Then comes a report of a mass meeting: 

At a meeting of the citizens of the town of Westport, 
held in the basement of the Baptist church on the evening 
of August 2nd, 1862 pursuant to notice, George W. Goff 
was duly elected chairman and Barton B. Richards sec- 
retary. Addresses were delivered by Rev. Mr. Munsev, 
Rev. Mr. Harwooa, Rev. Stephen Wright, Victor 
C. Spencer, Byron Pond and Rev. Mr. Sawyer. It was 
voted to raise a local bounty of $10.00 for each volunteer, 
and that a Committee of Finance be appointed to solicit 
subscriptions to raise a fund to pay a local bountv to all 
volunteers in this town, and transact such other business 
as may be necessary in connection therewith. 

This committee was thus constituted: Samuel Root, 
chairman, Daniel W. Braman, William H. Richardson, M. 
D.. Harry J. Persons, Philetus D. Merriam William L. 
Wadhams, Calvin D. Pratt, F. H. Page. D. iVl. Howard, B. 
B, Richards, Charles W. Holcomb, George W. Goff. Said 



504 HISTORY or WESTFORT 

committee to ixiet at the Inn of H. J. person to report on 
the Tuesday evening next, 

While preparations were thus making for the prose- 
cution of the war which had already begun, another, 
probably the last, of our pioneers crossed the border 
land of that country whence no emigrant ever returns, 
Capt, Jesse Braman died in 1862, aged eighty-six years, 
having passed sixty years of his hfe in the spot which 
he had first seen in all the untamed wildness of na- 
ture, fridge and dam and mills, the church, the 
school-house and the neighborhood dwellings, he had 
seen them all built, and for twenty years after his com- 
ing the place had been known by his name more gen- 
erally than by any other. Himself a captain in the war 
of 1812, he had at least three grandsons in the conflict 
which was raging between North and South when he 
looked his last upon the strifes of earth. 

This year we find the first mention of the Armory, 
which was undoubtedly built in the fall of 1861. It 
still stands in the southern part of the village, on Main 
street, a large brick building with long narrow windows, 
not far from the lake shore. It was one of a series of 
similar armories erected on the frontier that year. I 
have understood that the selection of Westport as the 
place for one of these storehouses of mihtary^ supplies 
was due to the efforts of Mr. Ralph Loveland. It was 
never the scene of such activity as the arsenal at Eliza- 
bethtown during the war of 1812, and never contained 
military stores. Its history is but a tame and happy 
record of commonplace events. It was purchased bj 



HISTORY OF WKST/'O/rr noo 

the town iu 187-1: and used for town meetings and public 
featherings of all kinds. Some enterprising young peo- 
ple fitted it up with a stage and seats and gave a series 
of private theatricals to the villagers, and it was often 
used by traveling shows and for school exhibitions after 
that. From 1865 to 1880 it formed the ^'Floral Hall" 
of the County Fair, and was decorated every fall with 
gay patchwork quilts, while the air was filled with the 
conflicting strains of a half do/en cottage organs. 
When the Fair grounds lay no longer u|>on the lake 
shore it was not so well worth while to keep it in repair, 
and as it was always exceedingly inconvenient as a pub- 
lic building, and difficult to warm, it was at last sold to 
Dv. Henr}^ Hiekok, about 1885, and has since then been 
private property. It has recently been used as a paint 
shop. 

1H(5:3, 

Town Meeting held io the Armory 

Scimuel B(jot, Supervisor. 

William O. Nichols. Clerk. 

Burton B. Richards. Justi-ee. 

Alexander bitevensou, Assessor. 

Wallace W. Olds, Collector. 

Eli Farosworth and Janies A. Aileu, Overs<*er.s of the 
Poor. 

No Inspectors of Election wQi'ti ele^cted and it fell u])uu 
the J ustices of the Peace to appoint. They appointed 
Hinkley Coil, Edwin B. Low and Joseph E. Smith. Then 
Hinkley Coll refused to act. and C. J. Sawyer was ap- 
pointed in bis place. The Justices w^^vt'. William F. Chat- 
terton, David S. McLeod and Aaron Clark. 

Vuted to raise $15.00 to purchase stove ana p,^pe for the 
Arsenal, 

Kittredge Cross, Edwin B. Low. A. P. Holt, James A. 
A.lljRn^ Benjamin Leahy. Constables. 



.yn; 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



PcithimstiM's.— Henrv Sheldoo. Moses W. Coll, Henry E. 
Wai-i-en Archibald Pdttisoa. William Frisoie Nathaniel 
Allen, Laui-eus H. White, Joseph James, William T. Wil- 
liams, Aarun Ainj^er. E. Sturtevant, Eli Farnsworth, 
Charles Dunster. W. W. Finney, William Lawrence, Cic- 
ero Sayre, Levi Harris. Julius Vautrhan. JosepnTryon, E. 
J Smi'th, Eleazer Welch, Braiuard Howard. Forrest Good- 
speed. Julius W. Ferris. Morrill Gibbs. Zelotus Puller, 
Austin Taylor, Albert Pierce, Isaac T. Johnson, James 
Fortune. 

1864. 

Town Meetin^r held in the Armory. 

Daniel W. Braman. Supervisor. 

Edwin B. Low, Clerk. 

William L. Wadhams, Justice. 

Joseph E. Smith, Assessor. 

Hai-ry N. Cole, Hiijfhway Commissioner. 

William Wallace Olds. Collector. 

Charles C Dunster. James A. Allen, Poor Masters. 

Luther B. Newell, Charles Patterson, Hinkley Coll, lo- 
spect(M-s of Election. 

William W. Olds, Edwin B. Low, Jeremiah Flinn, James 
A. Allen. Charles Sweatt. Peter Joubert, Constables. 

Pathmasters.— Albert Carpenter, Denis Persons, Israel 
Patterson, Archibald Patterson, Jeremiah Flinn, William 
Frisbie, William Mclntyre, William P. Mer-iam, William 
T. Williams, Ljther An^ier. LeviH. Cross, EdmondSturt- 
evant, Charles Sweatt. Oscar Taylor, William Lawrence, 
Howard Farnsworth, Harvev Smith, Barney Boyle, Jr., 
Hari-iman Daniels, Aaron B. Mack, Abraham Greeley, 
Alvin Burr, Solomon Stockwell, Julius Ferris, Barton 
Royce, Alexander McGill, Orren Taylor, Cortez Bennett. 
Isaac T. Johnson, F. J. Clement. 

Town Meeting adjourned to the Armory. 
At a special meetinj^ of the Town Auditors of Westport 
this 29tb day of March, 1864, for the purpose of raisinor 
monev to pav men as volunteers to fill our quota for the 
last call of Two Hundred Thousand, it was voted to raise 
Twelve Hundred Dollars to pay said men. 

Sicrned by D. W. Braman, Supervisor, Edwin B. Low, 
Town Clerk, and William F. Chatterton, Jason Bramai^ 
and Barton B. Richards, Justices. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 507 

A similar meeting April 2()th, 1864, voted to raise $1800, 
with which to pay bounty to six re-enlisted men. each to 
have $300.00 These men were Charles H. Davis, James 
E. Barnes, Moses Tatro, Dennis Thomas, George Allen. 
and Hiram Burt. 

At a public meeting of the citizens of Westportheld jnir- 
suant to a call of the Supervisors of Essex county, at the 
Baptist church, August 30, 1864. V^oted Samuel Root, 
Chairman, Barton B. Richards, Secretary. 

The chairman briefly stated the object of the meeting to 
be lor the purpose of raising a town bounty of $50.00, to 
till our quota with volunteers and draft, and to discuss 
the propriety of instracting our supervisor to request the 
Board of Supervisors to assess the town on the granJ list 
an amount sufticient for that purpose. Voted that this 
meeting guarantee the sum of $50.00 to all who may enlist 
to-night. After some discussion it was moved and voted 
that the chairman appoint a committee of eight, of which 
he should be chairman, to arrange a plan to present to our 
next meeting for raising a bounty. Whereupon the chair 
announced the following gentlem.en as such committee: 

D. L. Alien. B. B. Richards, D. W. Braman. George W. 
Goff, J. W. Eddy, E. H. Page, A. Pattison. At the re- 
quest of D. W. Braman he was excused from said commit- 
tee and W. L. Wadhams substituted. V^oted that the chair 
add three to said committee, and Calvin D. Pratt, Joseph 
E. Smith and D. M. Howard were accordingly added. 
Voted that an expression of this meeting sanctions the 
plan of taxing the town to raise the bounty for volunteers. 
The vote was nearly unanimous in favor. Voted that Or- 
lando Kellogg be invited to address our next meeting. 
Adjour-ued to next week Thursday eve. 

Signed by Samuel Root. Chairman, Barton B. Richards. 
Secretary, and Edwin B. Low, Town Clerk. 

This year and the two following — 1864-5-6 — Dr. William 
H. Richardson, one of our Westport phj^sicians, was sent 
to the Assembly. 

1865. 

Town Meeting held in the Arinoi-y. 
Daniel W. Braman. Supervisor. 
Reuben J. Ingalls. Clerk. 
Jason Braman. Justice. 



r>os HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 

David L Allen and Jonathan ¥. Braisted. Assessors. 

Noel Mei-rill, Hiu^hway Comtnissiooer. 

Hosea B. Howard, Collector. 

Peter Ferris and Cnarles C. Dunster, Poor Masters. 

Reiiel W. Arnold, Oran;^e Gibbs, Albert Pierce, Inspee-- 
tors of Election. 

Peter Joubert. Hosea Howard, Charles H. Pattison, Wil- 
liam Sails and Thomas Dicker.son, constables. 

PathmasLers.— O. B. Howard, Melvin Carpenter, R. W. 
Arnold, Henry Frisbie, Albert Cole, Charles Holcomb, Al- 
mon A. Allen, William P. Merriam, Merlin W. Angrier, 
Cyrus B. Koyce. Edmund Sturtevant, Elijah Wright. 
Orrin Hardy, Rents Hasted, A. P. HarDwell, Ephraim 
Hill, Harvey Smith, Abram Olds, Harriman Daniels, Al- 
bert Carpenter. Warren Pooler, Brainard B. Howard. 
Solomon Stockwell, Lee Pronty, Abraoi Sherman, John E. 
Smith. Orson Taylor, Martin Vau^^han, Franklin Pierce. 
Webster Royce. Rilev Palmer. 

This year, I am told, the arched stooe bridge in the 
village was built, altlionga it is not mentioned in the 
Town Book. There had been a wooden bridge at this 
phice since the time of the early settlers. In August 
of 1897 there was a Hood which took out the eastern 
end of the bridge, destroying the smaller arch. This 
small arch was built to preserve an ancient right of way 
for the flume which ran to the Old Stone Mill, and when 
the bridge was rebuilt it w^as necessary still to respect 
this right of way, althougli nothing is less likely than that 
the water-power will ever be carried past the bridge 
again. In June of 1903 the upstream wall of the bridge 
gave way, but repairs were carried on with no interrup- 
tion to tratSc. In 18f)5, and again in 1897, a temporary- 
bridge was built a little way up stream. 

At tin adjourned special Town Meeting held at the Ar- 
mory in Westport, on the 14th day of January, 1865, pur- 
suant to notice giveu Decjember 29th. 18()1. according 



Ill STORY OF w/jsrro/rr 50!f 

to law, for the purpose of raising!; iiiouey to pay bou Li- 
lies to volunteers, to fill the quota of the town of 
Westport under the last call of the Presideat for 800,00(1 
iiien. Voted Aaron Clark ehairaian and Barton B. 
Richards secretar}' of the meetiutif, and adjourned 
to Barton B. Richards' store. The meeting was called 
to order b\' the chairman, who briefly stated the ob- 
ject of the meetinof, whereupon it was moved and seconded 
to raise the sum of $8000 and j^lace in the hands of the 
Board of Town Oflicers, or so much thereof as may be nec- 
essary to pay bounties to volunteers to fill the quota of this 
town. An amendment was then offered and accepted to 
raise the sum of $10,000. to be used in the same way and 
for the same purpose. Voted that a committee of five be 
appointed by this raeetinii", to be associated with the Board 
of Town Officers to assist in raising volunteers. This com- 
mittee was Samuel Root. F. H. Page, Israel Patterson. Ed- 
mund J. Smith and Samuel Pierce. Adjourned. Signed bv 
Aaron Clark, Chairman, F^. B. Richards. Secretary and E. 
B. Low, Town Clerk. 

This is tlie last record in the old Ttnvn Book wliieli 
makes allusion to the war. I will tell the story of the 
men who went away to fight as I have been able to 
gather it from their own lips and those of their com- 
rades and families. There ought to be a r^^cord of qur 
enlisted men on file in the town clerk's office, but search 
has failed to reveal it, and I have been obliged to de- 
pend entirely upon the assistance mentioned; therefore 
it will be seen that some names may be omitted which 
ought to stand here, and other mistakes ma}' be made 
wliich those who come after nie will have the privilege 
nf correcting. 

The First Volunteers. 

Fort Sumter was surrendered April 14, 1861, and the 
next day President Lincoln called for seventy-five thou- 
Siind Yolunteers to put down the Eebellion. Instanth' 



510 IJ J STORY OF WESTPORT 

tht^ North res])oiule(L Two young men from Westport 
enlistoa before the end of the month, being not only the 
iirst to enlist from their own town, but also the first from 
the county. 

One of these young men was Washington Irving 
Sawyer, who was attending school at Hampton Insti- 
tute, Fairfax, Yt., when th'e call for troops came. He 
was then twenty-two, the son of Miles McFarland Saw^- 
yer, and great-grandson of Isaac Sawyer the Indian 
tighter, whose name is connected with the story of a 
daring escape from captivity during the Revolutionary 
war. He immediately left his studies and came home, 
declaring his intention of enlisting. He found another 
young man as eager as himself, with whom he had 
played in childhood,— Napoleon Joubert, brother of 
Mis. P. P. J3acon. In vain they were urged to wait 
until a company was formed in town, of which there 
was a prospect. They left at once for Albany, and there 
Irving Sawyer enlisted in the 18th N. Y. Y., which was 
attached to Newton's brigade. Porter's corps, Array of 
the Potomac. The next summer, June 27, 1862, he was 
killed at the battle of Gaines Mill, Ya., and his wid- 
owed mother never saw his face again. His three broth- 
ers also went to the war afterward. Napoleon .loubert 
enlisted in the 4th U. S. Cavalry, and was a corporal in 
Company C. He was wounded by a shot which passed 
entirely through one lung, but recovered, and lived until 
1901. His brother Cassius enlisted afterward, and died 
in hospital in Baton Pvouge^ La. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 511 

Comx^any K of tlie "IMiii't y-KiLilitli. 

The next public event after the departure of yonug 
Sawyer and Joubert occurred upon a day early in June, 
when a company of Elizabethtown men came out and 
took the steamboat for the south at our wharf. This 
was Company K of the 38th New York Volunteers, 
commanded by Captain Samuel C. Dwyer, a young law- 
yer of Elizabethtown, who had spent a part of his 
school days in Westport and was well-known here. In 
this company were seven Westport boys, all from Wad- 
hams and its vicinit}', and two others who have since 
resided in town. The 38th regiment was mustered into 
service in New York, left the State June 19th and 
reached Washington June 21st. In tliese first days of 
the war soldiering was looked upon as a gay excursion 
into the great world, a picnic at the expense of Uncle 
Sam, with some agreeable drilling and marching thrown 
in. The grentest uncertainty was the fear lest they 
might be obliged to come back without seeing any 
lighting, and the crowd of merry young fellows who 
marched across the gang-plank on board the boat that 
June day went with bright eyes and laughing lips, proud 
that the whole town was there to look on and see what 
a tine show they made. A little over a month, and the 
38th, in Wilcox's brigade, Heintzebnann's division, ad- 
vanced with the rest of the army to the first battle of 
Bull Hun. For four hours it was in close action. 
After the panic-stricken retreat it was found that 
the regiment had lost one hundred and twenty- 



512 HISTORY OF WKSTFORT 

ei.o;bt men in killed, wounded and missing. Pitt 
Edgar Wadbanis, son of Abraham Wadbaras, was 
severely wounded, and Orlaudo B. Wbitney and 
George Boutwell were taken prisoners. Wbitney died 
in prison, and Boutwell spent more tbau a year in dif- 
ferent soutbern prisons, nearly starving to deatb, and 
retui-ning after bis excbange in a most pitiable condi- 
tion of weakness. Tbese were tbe realities of war, and 
after tbe tirst battle of Bull Run no one doubted tbe 
possibility of bgbting and of deatb. Company K of 
tbe 88tb was tbe only organization from Essex county 
at tbis tirst battle of tbe war. Tbe next summer, in 
May of 1862, Captain Dwyer was mortally wounded at 
tbe V)attle of Williamsburg, dying a few days afterward 
at St. Jobn's Hospital in Pbiladelpbia. His body was 
sent home to Elizabetbtown, and again tbe townspeo- 
ple gathered at tbe wbarf, tbis tinie to see tbe coffin 
carried by wbicb contained all that was left of tbe gal- 
lant voung captain wbo bad stepped upon tbe deck so 
lightly only a year before. Others of our men in Com- 
pany K were Ge.nge Frencb, who was a sergeant; C„ 
Wesley Daniels, who was wounded Dec. IB, 1862, at 
Fredericksburgh, was promoted corporal of Company 
C, and served to June 22, 1863; George Avery and 
Moses C.yer. Martin Marsball and Stepben Hatba- 
way are at present residents of Westport, tbe latter tbe 
oldest survivor of Company K« 



,1 



inSTORY OF WESTPORT r>J3 

Comi^aiiy A oitlie Seveiity-Seveiith. 

The excitement attendautupon the departure of Com- 
pany K of the 38th served to intensify the war spirit 
already awakened, and once more the centre of Main 
street was daily used for the drilling of squads of men, 
while the air was full of war talk and military terms. 
Then living in town was an old soldier, William Harris 
by name, who had been in the United States dragoons 
under Gen. Harney, fighting Indians on the Western 
plains. Exempt by age from military service, he threw 
himself into the work of drilHng the young men who 
longed for a soldier's life. A recruiting office was 
opened in the village, Reuel W. Arnold having received 
authority to raise a company, and by the middle of the 
summer fifty young men had signed the roll, most of 
them boys entering the twenties, with a few married 
men a little older who expected to receive commissions, 
September 15 they were mustered into service, and two 
days later took the boat to go to Saratoga, where 
they been ordered to join a regiment that was being 
organized by the Hon. James B. McLean. There the 
company was soon recruited to its maximum strength of a 
hundred men from Jay, Keene and surrounding towns, 
and being the first on the ground, was called Company 
A. The regiment was called "the 77th," or "Bemis 
Heights Battalion," named, as Watson remarks, "by 
the suggestions of the spot," in allusion to the surren- 
der of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777. This was prob- 
ably the only regiment in the service which was num- 
bered purely for sentimental reasons. In actual num- 



oJ4 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

erical order it stood somewhere in the forties. The 
regimental flag emphasized the historical allusion. "The 
banner," says Dr. George T. Stevens, in "Three Years 
in the Sixth Corps, " "was an exquisite piece of work, 
of the richest fabric; a blue ground with elegant de- 
signs in oil. On one side was represented an engage- 
ment in which the American soldiers, led by Washing- 
ton, were fighting under the old flag, — thirteen stripes 
and the union jack. On the reverse was pictured the 
surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga under the new flag, — 
the stars and stripes." The colonel of the regiment 
was the Hod. James B. McLean, M. C, succeeded after 
one year by Col. Winsor B. French. 

A month in camp, then on November 23d they were 
mustered into the service of the United States, and on 
Thanksgiving Day started for Washington. The com- 
pany had elected Beuel W. Arnold Captain, William 
Douglass First Lieutenant and James H. Farnsworth 
Second Lieutenant, these three men being somewhat 
older than the majority of the company. The regiment 
received guns and equipments in New York, and upon 
arriving at Washington went into camp on Meridian 
Hill. There was much sickness in camp, and here the 
company met with its first loss, Hiram Persons dying 
in hospital. On January 5, 1862, Lieutenant Farns- 
worth resigned his commission and returned home, 
Charles Edson Stevens being promoted to the vacant 
office. 

February 15tb, 1862, the regiment received its first 
orders to march, being sent across the river into Yir- 



insrORY OF WE ST PORT 515 

f>iuia to join Gen. W. F. Smith's division, and assigned 
to the 3rd Brigade under Gen. Davidson. They marched 
all day in mud knee deep, with rain and sleet pouring 
down upon them, and pitched their teut at night upon 
ground covered with snow. Here they remained in 
camp till March 8th, doing their first picket duty in 
front of the enemy. "But on the 8th of March," says 
Major Stevens, in a sketch of the history ot the 77th 
which the author has freely used in this account, *'the 
question 'Why don't the army move?' was answered by 
orders to be ready to march at 4 o'clock in the morning, 
and the great army that had been so long drilhng was 
to be launched at the Confederate force that held Ma- 
nassas all winter." But the Confederate army retreated, 
and the 77th, with the rest of the division, went into 
camp at Fairfax Court House a few days, then marched 
for Alexandria where they camped on ground covered 
ankle deep with water, with rain which rendered it im- 
possible to build fires. This is remembered as the worst 
night ever experienced by the 77th,and the spot is known 
by the name of "Camp Misery." From there they took 
transports for Fortress Monroe, and went into camp at 
Newport News, near the river. Here they saw the wreck 
of the U. S. frigate Cnmherlcuid, sunk by the J/enTmac a 
few days before, and here the rebel gunboat Teaser 
came out and threw a few shells over the camp, the first 
which our men had ever seen coming from the enemy. 
Then came the campaign up the peninsula, with great 
hardships for new soldiers. The water from marshy 
ponds their only drinking supply, typhoid soon broke 



516 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

out among them, and everj day one or two were sent 
back to the hospital, "some to be sent north, and some 
to be buried under the pines." For a month they lay 
under the works at Yorktown doing picket duty and 
building forts, sometimes being called up two or three 
times in a night to form a line while there was severe 
firing upon their pickets. April 3rd, 1862, Captain 
Arnold resigned his commission, as did also Lieutenant 
Douglass a few days afterward, and they returned home. 
May 6 occurred the battle of Williamsburg, the first 
serious engagement in which the 77th took part. Here 
they saw for the first time the boj^s of the 38th, whom 
they had cheered as they left Westport a year before, 
and here it was that Captain Dwyer was shot down. 
"At Williamsburg," says Major Stevens, "we saw the 
38th march into the woods while we were laying in sup- 
port at. Gen. Sumner's headquarters, until we were or- 
dered to join Gen. Hancock on the right, and there 
learned of the death of Captain Dwj^er." ilfter this 
came the siege of Richmond and the Seven Days re- 
treat, when the men fought daytimes and marched 
nights, becoming so worn out that they would drop 
down in the road at every halt and fall asleep without 
stirring from their places, and even slept while march- 
ing. After the battle of Malvern Hill the 77th was 
transferred from the peninsula to join Gen. Pope near 
Washington, and took part in the second battle of Ball 
Run, August 29th. Then it was sent into Maryland 
w^ith Burnside's column of McClellan's army to check 
the movements of Gen. Lee, a pleasant march into a 



HI STORY OF WKSTrORT nn 

beautiful country, ending with the har(l-fou|^ht battle 
of South Mountain, September 14th, followed immedi- 
ately by the terrible conflict of Antietam, in which over 
17,000 men were killed and wounded, the greatest loss 
in one day of the Union army during the war. The 
sixth corps, to which the 77th was attached, came up 
after a hard forced march, charged over ground 
which had been already fought over three times during 
the day, and held the position. Here Sergeant Hiram 
Barnes and Wesley Compton of Company A were 
wounded, and discharged for disability. After spend- 
ing some time in hospital. Sergeant Barnes re-enlisted 
in the 96th, where he became one of a picked company 
of sharpshooters. He was afterward captured by the 
enemy, and was in Libby prison for five weeks, then 
transferred to the stockade at Salisbury, N. C, where 
he remained six months, nearly dying from starvation 
and exposure. With him there was Silas W. FlinD,son 
of Jerry Flinn, a boy who sunk beneath the hardships 
of the place, and died in the arms of Sergeant Barnes. 
Barnes sat and held him for three hours after the 
breath of life had left him, with a circle of the other 
prisoners standing around to hide them from observa- 
tion, in order to make sure that the boy was dead be- 
fore he was taken out upon the dead-cart and cast into 
the pit This was one horror which a faithful friend 
might spare another, even in Salisbury stockade, and I 
would that Westport boys should always remember the 
story, long after the tall form and white beard of Ser- 
geant Barnes shall be no longer seen upon our streets. 



518 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

When we find in our own history such an instance of 
suffering and devotion, let us see to it that it shall not 
be forgotten. 

About a month after the battle of Antietam the 77th 
was again marching into Yirgiuia to participate in the 
disastrous battles of Fredericksburgh and Marye's 
Heights, In the latter engagement the 77th captured 
the 18th Mississippi, colonel, colors and all, or at lease 
they did actually capture the colonel, (Col. Luce,) a 
large number of prisoners, a stand of colors and a quan- 
tity of small arms. This was one of the incidents 
which led Gen. Davidson to say affectionately of the 
77th, "It is a little regiment, but it is always in the 
right place." They recrossed the river to spend the 
remainder of the winter in camp at White Oak Church, 
on the Rappahannock. Here some of the officers' wives 
visited them, among them the wife of the regimental sur- 
geon. Dr. George T. Steveiis. She was a Westportgirl, 
Miss Harriet Wadhams. In December C. E. Stevens 
was promoted First Lieutenant, and William F. Lyon 
Second Lieutenant. In the spring the arm\' again 
crossed the river, and this time the heights of Fred- 
ericksburgh were carried by Union troops, while Gen. 
Hooker was being beaten at Chancellorsville, May 1-4. 
The 77th was one of the regiments detailed to assist the 
engineer in laying pontoon bridges across the Rap- 
pahannock. This work was greatly impeded by con- 
stant firing from the rebel rifle pits on the other side 
of the river, and it was in the performance of this duty 



HISTORY OF WKSrrORT ol9 

that Rex Haveus was killerl. Pitt Wadhams was killed 
on the tiiird day, beiu^ shot in the right temple. 

Then the third of July, came the great battle of 
Gettysburg, in which the 77th was held in reserve upon 
Powers' Hill, near Gen, Slocam's headquarters, where 
the regimental monument now stands. 

Other regiments in which Westport men had enlisted 
which were present at the battle of Gettysburg were 
the 2nd New York Cavalry, or the "Harris Light Bri- 
gade," the 5th New York Cavalry, the 12th and the 
44th N. Y. Infantry. 

After the battle, the 77th, (with the rest of the Sixth 
Corps,) was sent in pursuit of Lee toward the Potomac. 
He escaped, and wlien they came to Petersville, Md., 
on the Potomac, they were obliged to wait for orders to 
cross. While in camp at this point, some of the offi- 
cers' wives who had been in Washington, waiting an 
opportuuit}' to visit their husbands, made a short visit 
at the offit-ers' quarters. It was at this time that the 
surgeon's wife, Mrs. Stevens, presented the regiment 
with a beautiful pair of guidons. The ground was blue, 
witli the wdiite Greek cross which was the badge of the 
division, and in the center of the cross the figures "77." 
These are the tattered guidons which may now be seen 
in the capitol at Albany, carried by the regiment 
through all the remaining battles of the war. It is 
pleasant to think, while gazing upon them, that the}^ 
were made by a daughter of Westport. 

The remainder of the year was spent by the 77th in 
Virginia, between Washington and the Rappahannock, 



520 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

with a few skirmishes, and the advance to Mine Run. 
While in camp at Hart's Mills, Ya., on the Rappahan- 
nock, the wife of Captain Davenport, of the Fifth Ver- 
mont, visited him. She had been Frances Wadhams, 
and was sister of Mrs. Stevens. Captain Davenport 
was killed in battle the next May. 

In the spring the Army of the Potomac, under Gen- 
eral Grant, entered upon the final campaign against 
Richmond. On the 5th of May, 1864, the 77th crossed 
the Rapidan with about five hundred guns. The 12th 
of May there were not more than a hundred men in 
line, the balance of the regiment having been killed or 
wounded. From the crossing of the river to the first of 
July there were but few days when the regiment was 
not under fire. The battles of the Wilderness and of 
Spottsylvania were among the most sanguinary and 
prolonged struggles of the war. On the 10th of May 
twelve regiments, one of tbem the 77th, were chosen to 
charge the enemy's works. There were three lines of 
defense. The first, the second, the third, were taken 
without halting. Then the enemy was re-enforced, and 
our men were driven back, leaving their dead and 
wounded behind them. One of those killed in the last 
line was Lieut. William F. Lyon, son of Isaac Lyon. 
George Allen, son of Nathaniel Allen, was also killed at 
Spottsylvania. 

The 77th took part in the twelve days' fighting at 
Coal Harbor, Va., from June 1st to the 12th. Here 
they first met the boys of the 118th, who had left West- 
port a year after Company A. "The first time we met 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 621 

the 118th regiment," says Major Stevens, "was at Coal 
Harbor after the disastrous charge on their works. Onr 
regiment was moved out to the picket line in the night, 
and the morning found the right of our regiment join- 
ing the left of the 118th, and we lay in that hole until 
they were sent around to Petersburg by water, and we 
marched across the peninsula." 

While the 77th lay in the works before Petersburg a 
singular incident occurred, which is thus related by 
Dr. George T. Stevens in the book already once referred 
to. "On the 22d (of June) Colonel Bidwell's brigade 
occupied the front line of rifle pits. The sun was shin- 
ing brightly, and our men, unprotected by shelter, 
were striving to pass the time with as little discomfort 
as possible. A group of men of the 77th were behind 
the breastwork, stretched out upon the sand, resting 
upon their elbows and amusing each other with jokes, 
wdien a shell came shrieking into their midst. Its ex- 
plosion threw them in ever}^ direction. One went high 
in the air and fell twenty feet from the spot where he 
was lying when the shell exploded. Strange to tell, not 
a man was killed, yet three had each a leg crushed to 
jelly, and two others were seriously wounded. The 
t.hree whose legs were crushed were Sergeant James 
Barnes, James Lawrence, and James Allen, of Company 
A." Two of these men, James Barnes and James Law- 
rence, came from Westport, and another one of our 
men, Moses Tatro, was injured at the same time, being 
wounded in the hand by a fragment of the shell. Dr. 
Htevens tells how in thirty minutes' time from the be- 



522 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

ginning of the operation each of these Jameses had a 
leg amputated just above the knee, had tlie stumps 
dressed, and were loaded in to an ambulance and taken 
to the hospital at City Point. From there they were 
removed to Washington, where they received much at- 
tention from visitors who had heard the strange storj^ 
AH hved to return to Essex county, and were often aK 
luded to as '*the three one-legged Jims..'* 

When Gen. Early threatened Washington the Sixth 
Corps, to which the 77th was attached, was sent to op- 
pose him. "On the 12th of July our brigade made a 
charge on the enemy at Fort Stevens, in which every 
commanding officer of regiments was either killed or 
wounded. President Lincoln from the ramparts of Fort 
Stevens (one of the defensive works of Washington) 
witnessed the charge, it being the only battle of the war 
which was fought under his eye. The battle decided 
Gen. Early that the time to capturo Washington had 
passed, and he retreated to the Shenandoah valley., 
where we followed him under the command of Gen. 
Sheridan, there to clear him out of the valley by the 
battles of Winchester, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek." 

At the battle of Winchester, the 77th occupied ground 
near the ruins of an old church which was surrounded 
by graves. One of these graves, covered with a plain 
marble tablet, broken across, was that of Gen. Daniel 
Morgan, the dashing Bevolutionary commander who 
led his compan}^ of Virginia sharp-shooters to Boston 
to offer their services to Washington, and who took 
such a briUiaut part in the battles at Saratoga, Could 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 523 

lie have sat up and looked around him, and seen the 
banner of the 77th, with its painted picture of the sur- 
render of Bnrgoyne, what would he have thought of the 
Bemis Heights Battalion ! 

It was the battle of Cedar Creek which was begun by 
an attack from the Confederates with ^'Sheridan twenty 
miles away," as is told in the stirring poem by Bead, 
so often declaimed by school boys, beginnings 

'"Up from the south at break of day, 
Brin^iD^ to Winchester fresh dismay," 

but when Sheridan arrived upon the field, the Second 

Division, to which the 77th belonged, was the only one 

in the whole army which retained its perfect formation. 

It lay at the extreme left of the infantry line of battle. 

So when a Westport boy comes to the lines, — 

'•The first that the General saw were the ^i-oups 
Of stragglers, then the retreating troops, "^ — 

he may think to himself that although the men of the 
77th were there at that crucial moment, they were not 
retreating, and that when the black horse covered** with 
foam and with dust," came galloping up, bringing Sher- 
idan 

"all the way 
From Winchester down to save the day," — 

the Westport men did not need to be rallied, for they 
had not scattered. 

In the engagement which followed the arrival of Sher- 
idan upon the battle-field, Brigadier-General Bidwell 
was killed, and the captain of our Company A, Captain 
George S. Orr, (who had taken the place of Ca[)tain 
Arnold upon the resignation of the latter,) lost aii arm 



524 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

from the explosion of the same shell which killed the 
General. Hirani Biirt was killed at this time. The 
death of Genera] Bid well left Colonel Freoeh of the 77th 
in command of the brigade. 

The Fifth New York Cav^alrj, with some Westport 
men in Company H, fought at the left of the 77th iii 
the Shenandoah valley. 

On the 9th of December the Sixth Corps left the val- 
ley, and I'etnrued to the work^^ before Petersburg. 
There they lay all winter. On the 2nd of April, 1865> 
the corps made a brilliant chai'ge and captured the 
works in front of them, the 49th N. Y. and the 77th N. 
Y. forming the point of the wedge that broke the Con- 
federate line, and compelled the eyacuation of Rich- 
mond and Petersburg!! by Gen. Lee, In this charge 
the senic^r officers of the battalion w^ere wounded, and 
Major C. E. Stevens left in command. Far the remain- 
der of the campaign, which lasted only a few weeks 
longer, he was in command of his battalion. 

Both General Grant and General Meade s.poke in the 
highest terms of praise of the charge of the Sixth Corps 
at Petersburg, when the flag of the 77th was the first 
on the enemy's works. After this came the pursuit of 
Lee, with the fight at Sailor *s Creek, where the corps 
captured Gen. Fiweil, and enabled Gen. Custer with 
his cavalry to capture between thirty and forty- 
rebel flags. ''Then on to Appomattox to see the sur- 
render of Gen. Lee, Then the return to Washington 
and the grand review by President Johnson, after 
which the regiment was mustered out of the service c^ 



mSTORY OF WESTPORT 525 

the IJDited States. Returning to Albany, we delivered 
our torn battle flags to the governor of the state in the 
presence of General Grant, July 4th, 1805, and they 
fnay b© seen in the Capitol." Major Stevens adds: 
^'This is only a part of the history of the battles of the 
regimeot. According to the compiler of the "History 
of New York in the Bebellion," the 77th wa« engaged 
in fifty- two battles and skirrnishee, and the skirmishes 
were equal to any of the battles of the Cuban or Philip- 
pine wars." 

Of the original fifty members of Company A who first 
left Westport, only thre^ returned with the company at 
the expiration of nearly four years of service. These 
three went out as privates and returned with commis- 
sions — Major C. E. Stevens^ Captain Charles A. Davis 
^nd Lieutenant Sorel Fountain. Nearly all the rest 
iiad been killed in action, had died in prison or hospi- 
tal, or had been discharged on account of disabilit}'. 
Twenty-two of the company now sleep in southern soil, 
-eight who were killed in battle, and fourteen who died 
<5f disease and starvation. 

The names of the Westport men who belonged to 

Company A were as follows: 

Major Charles Edson Stevens. Went out as a sergeant, 
and upon tne resignation of Lt. Farosworth^ Jan. 5, 186i^, 
vwas p'Tomoted 2nd Lieutenant. In Dece/nber following he 
was appointed'lst, Lieutenant of Company A, and Oct. 15, 
18i64-., Captain of Coaapany E. In November the three 
year^' term of servi^^e for which the men of the 77th had 
<enlisted expired, and the regiment was accordingly mus- 
tered out of service, butenou^h of the veterans re-etsUsted 
to form a battalion of five companies which was called the 
77l;b BattaJion New Yovk State yoIun,te,er,s. witJj C E, 



526 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Stevens captain of Company C, and soon afterward (Jan. 
1, 1865) appointed Major of the battalion. From April 2 to 
May 1. 1865, Major Stevens was in command of the battal- 
ion. Major Stevens was boi-u in Westport April 26, 1839, 
the son of Guy and Mabel (Stoddard) Stevens. Married 
Jan. 10, 1864, to Eliza M. Lyon, daughter of Isaac and Lu- 
cinda (Holcomb) Lyon, and had one son, Harold. His 
second wife was Carrie Richards, daughter of James and 
Sarah (Thomson) Ricbards, and they have two daughters, 
(xertrude and Elizabeth. Major Stevens is now keeper of 
the lighthouse at Barber's Point. 

Surgeon George Thomas Stevens. Commissioned Sur- 
geon of the the 77th Oct. 8, 1861 and mustered out Dec. 15, 
1864. Operating surgeon for the division two and a half 
years, a^d for a time medical inspector of the Sixth Army 
Corps. In 1866 be published a book called "Three Years 
in ihe Sixth Army Corps." Dr. Stevens was born in Jay, 
N. Y. in 1832, .sou of the Rev. Chauucey and Lucinda 
(Hoadley) Stevens. For live years he was Professor of 
physit)]ogy and diseases of the eye in Union College, and 
since then has ri^^en high in his profession, writing many 
standard medical works in both French and English, and 
belonging to the highest foreign scientific societies. He 
is now a specialist in di.seases of the eye in New York. His 
wife was Harriet Wadhams, grand-daughter of Gen. Lu- 
inan Wadhams. 

Captain Reuel W. Arnold. In the service from Septem- 
ber, 1861, to April 3, 1862. 

Captain Charles A. Davis. Went out as a corporal, al- 
though only seventeen, and was promoted 2nd Lieutenant 
Oct. 16, 1864, 1st Lieutenant of Company E, Nov. 15, 1864, 
and Captain April 25, 1865 He is the son of Alvin Davis. 

Lt. William Douglass. In the service from September, 
1861 to April, 1862. 

Lt. William F. Lyon. In December of 1862 promoted 
from Orderly Sergeant to 2nd Lieutenant. Killed in the 
enemy's works at Spottsylvania, May 10, 1864. Son of 
Isaac D. Lyon, and brother-in-law of Major Stevens. 

2nd Lit. James H. Farnsworth. In the service from Sep- 
tember. 1861. to Jan. 5, 1862. 

Lt. Sorel Fountain. 2nd Lieutenant in the 77th Battal- 
ion. Served throughout the war. 

Sergeant James E Barnes. Mustered in as a musician; 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 527 

postmaster for tbe company; lost a leg at Petersburcr, 
June 21, 1864. Half brother of Major Stevens, and first 
keeper of the lighthouse at Barber's Point. 

Sergeant Hiram Barnes. Wounded at Antietam. dis- 
charged, re-enlisted in the 96th N. Y. Taken prisoner, he 
was in Libby prison live weeks, and in the stockade at 
Salisbury, N. C. six months. Cousin of James E. Barnes. 
Has a sou in the U. S. Navy. 

Sergeant Rex A. Havens. Killed May 3, 1864, in the 
battle of Chancellorsville, at the crossing of the river. 
Son of Asahel Havens, and brother of Mrs. William Doug- 
lass. 

Sergeant Hiram Burt. Died of wounds received at the 
battle of Cedar Creek, October, 1864. Son of Alvin Burt. 

Corporal George G. Allen. Killed at Spottsylvania, May, 
1864; son of Nathaniel Allen. 

Hiram Persons. Died Dec. 25, 1861, at Meridian Hill. 

William Coll. Died at Fortress Monroe, April 19, 1862; 
,son of Hinkley Coll. 

Georire W. Bigelow. Died in field hospital, Youngs' 
Mills, Va., April 30, 1862. 

John Ormsby. Died in field hospital in Youngs' Mills, 
April 23, 1862. 

Richard Fleurv. Died in hospital in New York. Mav 5, 
1862. ' • 

Frank Hoisington. Died in Douglass Hospital, Wash- 
ington. May 21. 1862. 

Dan W. iSheidon. Died at Liberty Hall hospital, May 
.^>0, 1862. When McClellan took possession of the country 
along the Chickahomiuy. near Richmond, the mansion 
called Liberty Hall, which had been the birthplace of Pat- 
rick Henry, was turned into a hospital by thelluion troops. 
Sen of Piatt R. Sheldon and grandson of Capt. Jesse Bra- 
«ian. 

Charles Palmer.. Died of an accidental wound in camp 
iit Patrick Statiou, Va., March 19. 1865. 

Corporal James A. Lawrence. Lost a leg at Petersburg, 
June 21, 1864. 

John Cro.ss. Wounded at Chancellorsville, May, 1863. 

Henry James. Wounded at Fredericksburg, May, 1863. 

Charles Pierce. Wounded in the Wilderness, May 5, 
1S64. 



r,2s nisroRY of westport 

William I. Gre.i^ory. Wounded ia the Wilderness, May 
(). 1864. 

JJenuis Thomas. Wounded in the Wilderness, May il, 
1864. 

Eber N. Allen, son of Nathaniel. 

Corporal Chauncey A. Baliou. 

Thomas Benson. 

Corporal James R. Bignall. Transferred to [J. S. Navy, 
April, 1864. 

Corporal Francis Maroin Bull. 

Lorriu Cole, son of Tilliayfhast. 

Michael Con ley. 

Roswell B. Dickenson. 

George W^. Dot^^ 

Charles Goodspeed. 

Rodolphus Goodspeed. 

Henry H. Merrill. 

Ezra Miner. 

Lewis Odell. 

Henry H. Richards. 

Obed Riut^er. 

Jobn H. Sawyer. Took small -pox in camp, and was 
sent home convalescent; dischart^ed at Albany. October 8. 
1862. 

Jacob V. Stevenson. 

Corporal David Strint^jham. 

James Van Or nam. 

The One Hiindi'ed and Eii^rhteenlli. 
Some single enlistments took place in the year follow- 
ing, and then, August 4, 1862, caine the call of the pres- 
ident for three hundred thousand additional troops. 
Another company was at ouce raised in Elizabethtowu, 
with Robert W. Livingston as captain. This was 
company F. of the 118th N. Y. Y., and in it were seven- 
teen Westport men. The 118th was called "the 'Adi- 
rondack" and contained three companies from Essex 
county. It was mustered into the service Aug. 29, and 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT ry20 

left Plattsburgh for the front early in September. The 
second lieutenant of Company F. (promoted first lieu- 
tsnaut the following year) was William Henry Steven- 
son, son of Thomas Stevenson, a farmer who lived in 
the south part of the township, so near the Hue that 
Watson makes the mistake of saying that Lt. Stevenson 
came from Moriah. A brother and three cousins were 
also in the service, all going out from the same neigh- 
borhood. 

The 118th was attached to the Army of the James, 
and saw its first service in the defense of Suffolk, Va. 
In June of 1864 the brigade to which the regiment be- 
longed was ordered to destroy parts of the Richmond 
and Fredericksburg railroad, and had a sharp skirmish 
with the enemy near the South Anna river. It was at 
this time that Lt. Stevenson captured a slight breast- 
work which was obstinately maintained in the centre of 
the skirmish line of the Confederates. He called for vol- 
unteers, took the first five men who offered, made a 
rapid flank movement behind some bushes on the right, 
and carried the breastwork with a rush. One of the 
Confederates was killed, one wounded, and thirteen 
others brought into the Federal lines as prisoners. 
This dashing exploit made Stevenson a hero at once, 
and throughout his short career he was the pride of the 
regiment. 

In the spring of 1864 Gen. B. F. Butler took com- 
mand of the Army of the James and co-operated with 
Grant in his advance upon Richmond. The 118th was 
in the 2nd brigade, 1st division, 18th corps. Early in 



530 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

May Gen. Beauregard held Fort Darling od the James, 
and Butler spent about six days, from the tenth to the 
sixteenth, in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge him. 
At three o'clock Monday morning, May 16, Beauregard 
attacked Butler and drove him from the outer works 
which he had captured. The 118th fell back fighting, tak- 
ing shelter as they could behind redoubts and traverses. 
The firing from the advancing Confederates was severe, 
and Capt. Livingston crossing an open space between 
two redoubts, was struck by a bullet in the shoulder, 
and his men saw him fall. Lt. Stevenson sprang from 
the cover of an embankment and ran to his assistance, 
followed by four men of the same company. In the 
very act of stooping to lift Livingston from the ground, 
Stevenson was struck dead by a shot from the enemy, 
who were already upon them. Two of the men who 
followed him were captured, and afterward died in 
prison. The other two succeeded in rescuing their 
captain, and carried him with them in the rest of the 
retreat, although he was struck by another shot after 
they had reached his side. The fate of Stevenson, so 
gallant a sacrifice to loyalty and to duty, endeared him 
to his comrades, and has made him conspicuous among 
the military heroes of Westport. A monument to his 
memory stands in the little cemetery at Mullein brook, 
and upon the formation of the G. A. R. Post at Port 
Henry, after the close of the war, his name was given 
to it in commemoration of his bravery. 

Butler's army fell back to Bermuda Hundred and 
fortified. Soon afterward the 18th corps was taken in 



HTSrORY OF WESTPORT 531 

transports down the James river and up the Pamunky, 
and hmded at the White House, to join the Army of 
the Potomac in the campaign of Grant against Rich- 
mond. Here the men of the llStli met those of the 
77th for the first time since the 77th had left the wharf 
at Westport, two years and eight months before. From 
the first of June to the twelfth there was constant fight- 
ing, with two ULisuccessful assaults upon the Confeder- 
ate works. For eight days the two armies lay within 
the rauge of each others' fire, the sharpshooters pick- 
ing off many men, — an ordeal as severe as anything 
experienced by the 118th during the whole war. This 
was the engagement at Coal Harbor, where the troops 
were forced to lie flat on the ground to escape the in- 
cessant fire of the enemy and the dead could not be re- 
moved or buried, but were thrown upon the breast- 
works, soon to form a more dreadful menace to friend 
than to foe. Trees in the rear of the troops were stripped 
of their bark and often cut entirely through by the mus- 
ketry tire from the Confederate ranks. On the 15th of 
June the regiment took part in an assault upon Peters- 
burg in which it suffered severely. For two months it 
lay before Petersburg, almost constantly under fire, aud 
July 29 it stood drawn up in line waiting for the ex- 
plosion of the great mine which the Union troops had 
been so long preparing for the destruction of the Con- 
federate works. The mine was sprung with terrible 
effect, but the Confederate defense was still so determ- 
ined that the 118th was not ordered to the charge. 
From August 27 to September 27 the regiment was 



532 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

in camp upon the south bauk of the James, and at this 
time the 96th, to which some Westport men belonged, 
was attached to the same brigade — the second. Then 
came the assault and capture of Fort Harrison, or Bat- 
tery Harrison, on the north side of the James, oue of 
the outer works of the city of Richmond. At three 
o'clock on the morning of September 29 the division 
crossed the James on a poutoon bridge, with the second 
brigade in the advance. The fort which they were to 
attack lay about three miles up the river. Two miles 
of this distance lay through woods which were full ».f 
the enemy's pickets, and then they came to an open 
space which was commanded by the guns of the Con- 
federate batteries. The attacking column was formed 
by the 96th New York and the 8th Connecticut, 
supported by the First and Third brigades of the divi- 
sion. The 118th New York and the 10th New Hamp- 
shire were thrown out as skirmishers on either flank, 
the 10th New Hampshire on the left and the 118th on 
the right. Both of these flanking regiments had just 
been armed with the new Spencer rifle, at that time the 
most perfect fire-arm known, and one which required 
skillful and resolute marksmen to bring out its best 
work. While the central column advanced to the at- 
tack, carrying the enemy's works in one grand rush, in 
the face of a furious fire of bullet, shot and shell, the 
118th on the right put in their work demoralizing the 
defense, picking off the gunners at their posts, and 
pouring in a discriminating fire upon the Confederate 
troops under which they faltered and ran. The Union 



TTlSrORY OF WESTPORT 533 

men swarmed over the embankment and into the fort, 
the two regiments in the centre planting their colors at 
the same time, and turning the guns of the batteries 
upon the fleeing foe. At the same time the 118th came 
in on the right, and the first two men who leaped into 
the redoubt and trained the guns to fire upon the re- 
treat were Nelson J. Gibbs, one of our own men, born 
under the shadow of Coon mountain, and Henry J. 
Adams, an Elizabethtown man. In Gen. Butler's ad- 
dress to the army of the James, a few weeks later, the 
name of Lieutenant Gibbs is mentioned first in the offi- 
cial commendation which the incident received. 

Mr. Gibbs at this time held the rank of 2nd Lieuten- 
ant of Company 1, soon afterward made first Lieuten- 
ant. The words of the address of Major-General But- 
ler, dated at "Headquarters,, Department of Virginia 
and North Carolina, Army of the James, before Rich- 
mond, Oct. 11, 1864," are these : 

"Lieuts. N. J. Gibbs and H. J. Adams of the same 
regiment, the first men in the redoubts, are commended 
for their presence of mind in turning the enemy's guns 
to bear upon them. They are respectfully recommended 
to His Excellency the Governor of New York for pro- 
motion." This recommendation, in the case of Lt. 
Gibbs, resulted in his receiving a brevet commission as 
Captain, "for gallant conduct at the attack on Fort 
Harrison, Sept. 29, 1864," signed by Reuben E. Fenton, 
Governor. That is the kind of a commission which it 
is very gratifying to receive, and the native town of the 
recipient immediately took the honor to itself. When 



534 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 



the account of the taking of Fort Harrison came out in 
the newspapers, a number of our principal citizens 
started a subscription paper which bore the signatures 
of about twenty men, the first being that of the Hon. 
George W. Goff, then the owner of the Jacksonville 
property, who had a son in the service himself. A 
handsome silver- mounted revolver was purchased and 
presented to Captain Gibbs upon his return, as an ac- 
knowledgment from his fellowtownsmen of the distinc- 
tion which had been conferred upon Westport through 
him. He was then twenty-two years of age. 

The Westport men in Captain Livingston's company 
were: 

Captain Nelson J. Gibbs. Son of Merrill and Abigail 
Gibbs. Married first, Theresa, daughter of Aaron Clark ; 
second, Jennie, daughter of James Richards. 

Lt. William H. Stevenson. Killed May IB, 1864. Son 
of Thomas Stevenson. 

John Flinn. Killed in action ; brother of Jerry and 
Michael Flinn. 

Newton Merrill. Died at Gloucester Point, Va. ;sonof 
Noel Merrill. 

George Wright. Died in U. S. hospital, St. Dennis,Md. ; 
son of Elijah Wright. 

William L. Frisbie. Died in hospital near Relay House, 
Md., Feb. 15, 1863, aged twenty. Son of Levi Frisbie, and 
grandson of Capt. Levi Frisbie. 

Egbert Braman. Son of Jason, and grandson of Capt. 
Jesse Braman; afterward entered the ministry of the M. 
E. church. 

John Ormiston. Died at Young's Mills, Va., Mayl, 1862. 

Henry Welch. Was brought home sick by his father, 
Eleazar Welch, and died upon the wharf at Westport im- 
mediately after landing from ths steamboat. 

William Ringer. 

Adolph James. 

Lambert Cross. 

Alvin T. Burt. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT S3,5 

Ralza Roberts, of Lewis, Afterward practiced medicine 
10 Westport. 

Hiram Lampmaa. 

Joseph Hardy. 

Henry Southard, 

Coaaat Sawyer. Could not pass the medical examina- 
tion necessary to enlistment, for the reason that he was 
totally blind in one eye, as the result of anaccidentin boy- 
hood. Knowing this, he applied to Captain Livingston in 
person, and begged so hard to be allowed to go with the 
company that the captain took him. giving him the task of 
caring for his horse, and other duties about his person. 
One of his brothers had been already killed, and two oth- 
ers were in the service. 

The Ninety-Sixth New York. 

There were uiue Westport men iu this reginaeot at 
diflereut times. 

Sergeant Austin Braisted, Co. K. Sou of Darius 
Braisted. 

Sergeant Hiram Barnes. Re-enlisted in the 96th 
after having been discharged from the 77th on account 
of wounds received at Antietam. Captured, in Libby 
prison five weeks, in Salisbury stockade, six months. 

Silas W. Flinn, son of Jerry Fiinn. Died in Salis- 
bury stockade. 

Leonidas Barnes, Brother of Hiram, 

Fred Matthews. 

John Tucker. 

Zemmett Couchey. 

Robert Tyler, Co. C. 

Dr. Piatt R. H. Sawyer was hospital steward in the 
4:2nd N. Y., was promoted to assistant surgeon in the 
U2nd N. y., and then full surgeon in the 96th N. Y. 



.^36 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Otlier Regiments. 

There were two Westport men in Company F, 99tli 
U. S. Infantry, Hosea Sayre, who died at Brandy Sta- 
tion, Ya., April 28, 1864, and Ed. Sweatt. 

Other men in infantry regiments were : 

Frank Whipple, corporal in Co. E, 12th N. Y. 

Henry Bromley, 14th N. Y. 

Walter Goff, son of George W. Goff, belonged to the 
44th, or the "Ellsworth Avengers." 

Robert Hooper, enlisted at Ogdensburgh in the 105th 
N. Y. 

Ed. Ross, 121st N. Y. 

Some of oar men enlisted in other states. Daniel F. 
Payne enlisted in Burlington, Yt., Sept. 1861, in the 
5th Yermont Yolunteers; was wounded at Savage Sta- 
tion June 29, 1862, losiog his right arm and receiving 
injuries in the head ; left behind in the retreat of Mc- 
Clellan, he was a prisoner in Richmond four weeks, was 
then exchanged and sent to the hospital in Philadel- 
phia : served to Sept. 1862. 

Charles P. Sheldon, son of Piatt R. Sheldon, enlisted 
from his home in Iowa. William Welch and Edwin 
Barnes also enlisted in Iowa. Peter Ringer went out 
from California, and was killed in the service. Zenas 
Clark went from Maine, Ed. Holcombfrom New Hamp- 
shire, and Joseph Estey from Yermont. Edward Os- 
borne was in the 17th Yermont Yolunteers, which was 
the last regiment raised in Yermont. It was mustered 
in Oct. 17, 1864, fought at Petersburgh, pursued Lee's 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT o.V7 

army until its surrender, and waj^ mustered out July 
22, 1865. 

Alvin Farr was in the 17tli Michigan, and Lewis 
Potter in the 21st Wisconsin, the latter badly wounded 
in the battle of Lookout Mountain. 

Samuel K. Dunster was hospital steward in the 21th 
Massachusetts. 

Dr. William H. Richardson was a vohinteer surajeon 
in the Army of the Potomac after the battles of the 
Wilderness in 1861. He was sent to the Assembly the 
same year. 

Some names have been given me which I have been 
unable to assign to the proper regiment : 

Augustus Avery, Silas Allen, Darwin Buck, Henry 
Counter^ October Counter, John Decker, James Fee, 
William Harper, John McConley, Dan McConle}^ James 
McGray, Felix McMannus, Lewis Raymond, Charles 
Shambo, Robert Slaughter, Richard Winter (belonged 
to a Zouave regiment), and Charles Young. 

Benoni T. West is buried here, but probably enlisted 
from North Hudson. 

Cavalry Regiixierits. 
We had thirty-six men in the cavalry arm of the serv- 
ice, fourteen belonging to the Second New York Veteran 
Volunteer Cavalry, a regiment which saw most of its 
service in the western campaigns- 
Alien Talbot Co. D. 
Joseph Sunn. 
Levi Harris. 
Oscar Phinney^ enlisted Sept, 1863, in Co. E. 



33S mSTOEY OF WESTPOKT 

Josiah Strattou, Co. ^. 

William Floyd, soa of Ransom, 

Edward Harper. 

Edward Harper, Jr. 

Silas Frazier. 

Daniel James. 

.John E. Gregory. 

Alexis Sarswell, 

Robert Stevensoo, 33rother of Lieut, Stevenson of 
the liSth, 

Carljle H, Torrance, Co. L, served from Feb. 1864 to 
^ov. 1865. He now has a son in the Philippine war. 

Nine were in the Eleventh New York Cavalry, or 
"Scott's Nine Hundred," This regiment went from 
Washington to New Orleans, and took part in the ope^- 
rations on the Mississippi, then went eastward through 
Tennessee and made a junction with Sherman's army, 
after it had gone "Marching through Georgia," 

James E. Patten, Co. C. 

Edwin Liawrenoe, Co, C, 

Leslie Smith, Co. C, 

Solomon Deyo, Co. I, 

Alexis Brothers,^ Co, I, 

Cassius Joubert, .Co. I, Died in Baton Rouge, La.^ 
Dec. 27, 1864, of typhoid fever, at the age of nineteen. 
Brother of Napoleon Joubert, 

H, L. Degroff. 

Benjamin Albert Barrett, The marble-cutter at 
Wadhams who cut the name of John Brown upon ihfy 
ancient tombstone at North Elba^, 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 539 

Oliver Daoa Barrett, bis brother, a graduate of 
the University of Vermont. Raised a battalion in 
"Scott's Nine Hundred." Practiced law in Washing- 
ton from 1867 until his death in 1901, being the law 
partner of Gen. B. F. Butler and executor of his estate. 

We had seven men in the Second New York Cavalry, 
called the "Harris Light Brigade," named after 
Senator Tra Harris of Albany. This regiment belonged 
to the Army of the Potomac, and when the monument to 
its memory was erected on the field of Gettysburg, one 
of the speakers said of it : "The story of the marches, 
raids, skirmishes and fights of this regiment from the 
Potomac to the Rappahannock, from the Rappahan- 
nock to the Rapidan, from the Rapidan to Gettysburg 
back through the valley of Virginia to Appomattox, is 
best told by the traces of bullets upon its battle flags," 
Our men were : 

Julius Blongy. 

Culbert Matthews. 

Lafayette Lasher. 

A. C- Constantine, 

-Charles Constantine, his son. 

Elbert M. Johnson. 

Chauncey Hodgkius. 

Five men joined Company H of the Fifth New York 
•Cavalry. This company was raised in Crown Point by 
Captain John Hammond, afterward Colonel of the reg- 
iment and brevet Brigadier-General, in the summer of 
1861. The company was mounted upon one hundred 
^jsod eight horses^ many of which were purchased in 



540 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Westport, Col. Hau^mond himself rode a Westporfc 
horse. The regiment was organized with one thousand 
and sixty-four mounted men, and at the end of the war 
only seven of the original horses still remained. 

The Fifth New York Cavalry had a brilliant career 
in Virginia and in the Shenandoah valley, where it was. 
commanded by Gens. Wilson aud Custer. There it 
fought in the line next the 77th New York Infantry. At 
Getty sburgh, upon July 3, it stood upon the extreme 
left, supporting Elder's Battery, and made a gallanfe 
charge at the base of Big Bound Top. Its monument 
upon that battle-field bears a beautiful bas-relief of a 
cavalryman upon his horse, and the legend, "^5th N. Y. 
Cavalry, 1st Brig. 3.rd Div, Cavalry Corps." Watson 
says : "By an auspicious fortune the Fifth had fought 
at Hanover, Pa., the first battle on free soil ; it was the 
first Union regiment that crossed the Bapidan inGrant'i^ 
campaign ; it i^eceived the first shock at the battle of 
the Wilderness, and was the last to leave the field." 

John G. Viall was appointed Second Lieuteuant of 
Company H in December of 1861, First Lieutenant in 
September of 1862, and Captain in April of 1864. His. 
father, William Yiall, and his grandfathe^r, John Gree- 
ley, had both seen service in the war of 1812, and his. 
great-grandfather,, John Greeley, fought as, a boy at the 
battle of Bunker Hill 

Other W^estport men in Company H were Abram 
Sherman, PeWitt Hooperj^ TUomas BiOs,& and Andrew 
J. Dauiels^ 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 547 

Napoleon Joubert belonged to the Fourth New York 
Cavalry. 

William Sherman, brother ot Abrara, served upon 
the peninsula before Yorktown in the 16th Michigan 
Lancers. 

Col. Francis L. Lee, 

There is a book in the village library called "Th(- 
ilecord of the Service of the Forty-fourth Massachu- 
setts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina, August 1862 
to May 1863." It is dedicated ^'To the Memory of our 
Commander, Comrade and Friend, Colonel Francis L. 
Lee," stating the fact that Col. Lee died while the book 
was passing through the press. From these pages the 
following facts have been gathered. 

Mr. Lee had been for years a member of tiie New 
England Guards, a military -organization of Boston 
■which was founded during the war of 1812, and which 
endured until September 1862, when it was merged into 
the Forty-fourth Massaehusetts. When President Lin- 
coln issued the call for three hundred thousand troops 
for nin^ months, August 4, 1862, Mr. Lee was at home 
with his family at Stony Sides. When he read the news 
-of th«e President's call in the papei-s^ he started immedi- 
;ately for Boston, which he reached on the evening of 
August 7, going at oaee to the armory where the Fourth 
Battalion were assembied. As he entered, the men 
were signing the roll for the new regiment^ in the midst 
of cheers and enthusiasm. Mr. Lee was then Major, 
but soon afterward received his commission as colonel 
<9f the regiment,, and on August 29 they went into camp 



542 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

at Beadville, near Bostou, where tliey remained until 
they were ordered to the front October 23. We quote 
the "Record :" 

"When we went to Readville, Colonel Lee was placed 
in command of camp, with military jurisdiction over a 
territorial radius of one mile. Although neither of our 
iield officers believed in the principle of total absti- 
nence, they realized the evil influence caused by undue 
indulgence in intoxicating drinks, and for this reason, 
as well as to set an example to the men under their 
command, they mutually resolved not to taste any wine 
or ardent spirits while they were in the service of the 
United States, a resolution to which they scrupulously 
adhered. Colonel Lee in particular felt very strongly 
about this matter, and waged a relentless war against 
'traffickers in the ardent' who attempted to estabhsh 
booths near our camp.'* 

A large proportion of the Forty-fourth were Bostou 
clerks, and there were seventy-five Harvard students in 
the regiment. Camp life was enlivened by concerts of 
classical music, and at one time a whole opera was com- 
posed and rendered by some of the soldiers for 
the entertainment of the rest. Their attention 
to their appearance on parade gave them the name 
of the "kid glove regiment," but it was acknowledged 
that there was the same thoroughness about their fight- 
ing. The Forty-fourth was assiugned to the 2nd bri- 
gade, 4th division, 18th Army Corps, Department of 
North Carolina, and its chief service was in the ope- 
rations about New Berne and WasJungton^ N. C. Their 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 54:i 

bauuer bears the names of "Kiiiston, Whitehall, Golds- 
boro, Dec. 1862," and "Washington, April, 1863." It 
was after this engagement of Washington, N. C, (called 
"Little Washington") that it was reported in the pa- 
lmers that Col. Lee had been killed. Not the least in- 
teresting page of the "Eecord" is that which contains 
portraits of the field and staff officers of the Forty- 
fourth, with the familiar figure of Colonel Lee in the 
centre, in his uniform, with sash and sword and mili- 
tar}' cap. The regiment was mustered out June 18, 
1863. 

Two men born in Westport attained to the rank of 
Brigadier-General after removing to other places. One 
was John Tyler Cutting, half-brother of Dr. Sewall 
S. Cutting, who served in the civil war from the state 
of California, and was for nine years connected with 
the National Guard of California as Lieutenant, Major, 
Colonel and Brigadier-General. 

The other was Alonzo Alden, born at Wadhams Mills, 
July 18, 1834 His father was Isaac Alden, a descend- 
ant of John Alden of the Mayflower. Alonzo Alden 
graduated from W^illiams College in 1859 and entered 
the law office of Gale & Alden of Troy. In 1861 he re^ 
ceived a commission as Lieut-Colonel of the 169th N.Y. 
Y. He led the charge of the regiment at Coal Harbor, 
Ya., and was the first to stand on the works of the 
enemy, himself planting upon the redoubt the colors 
which he had snatched from the hand of the color 
bearer as he fell, shot dead. Lt. Col. Alden was at this 
time wounded in the head, but after two months at 



544 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

home he returued to duty, this time as Colonel. He 
led the 169th at Fort Fisher, and when the fort was 
captured was placed in command of it. The enemy ex-> 
ploded a mine beneath the fort, and Colonel Alden with 
a hundred of his men was blown thirty feet in the air. 
From the injuries received at that time he never recov- 
ered, and in recognition of his bravery was brevetted 
Brigadier-General. The remainder of his life was spent 
in Troy, where he held the office of postmaster from 
1866 to 1874, 

A list of the daughters of Westport who have married 
military men would be interesting, but hard to make 
complete. The husband of Hmeline Wadhams, John 
E. Burton, was Captain of the 11th N. Y. Independent 
Battery, Light Artillery, IJ. S, V., and was brevetted 
Major. The first husband of Frances Wadhams, George 
D. Davenport, was Captain of Co. B, 5th Yt. Yols., and 
was killed in action at the Battle of the Wilderness^ 
May 5» 1864 Her second husband, Ebenezer J. Orms- 
bee, was Captain of Co. G, 12th Yt. Yols., and after- 
ward Governor of the state of Yermont. 

The record of Captain Albion Yarette Wadhams, U. 
S. N., is as follows : Appointed midshipman in the 
U. S. Navy, Sept. 24, 1864; graduated from the Naval 
Academy in 1868, promoted to Ensign ilpril 19, 1869 : 
to Master July 12, 1870 ; to Lieutenant March 25,1875, 
to Lieut, Commander July 21, 1894, to Commander 
March 3, 1899, to Captain Dec. 27, 1904, The naval 
history of Captain Wadhams presents many picturesque 
details of service on all our foreij^u and. home stations. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 545 

with presentations at courts and participation iu many 
a sharp fight During the Spanish war he was iu 
command of the patrol of our coast from Mobile to 
3Iexico. In 1893 he began lecturing upon his experi- 
ences in the navy, and has become famous as a public 
speaker. He makes his summer home at Wadhams 
Mills, and will sometimes entertain the people there 
who remember him as a boy with one of the lectures 
which he has delivered to large audiences all over the 
United States. 

xllbion James .Wadhams, son of Captain Wadhams, 
entered the IT. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis Sept. 4, 
1891 ; graduated and was commissioned Ensign July 1, 
1897, and Lieutenant, Junior Grade, July 1, 1900. Re- 
signed May 5, 1901. 

The AVork of tlie ^Von:leri. 

And what part did our women take iu the war, be- 
sides the involuntary role of waiting and weeping at 
home, with the whole interest of existence centered in 
the news from the front? We are fortunate in that 
this question can be full}^ answered, so far as details go, 
by the records of the Soldiers' Relief Society which was 
formed as soon as Company A had left for Saratoga. 
November 25, 1861, is the first date in the little manu- 
script book which is still preserved by the secretary of 
the society, and which has been kindly lent to the wri- 
ter. The constitution is written out in full and the ob- 
ject of "The Ladies' Soldier's Relief Society of West- 



546 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

port" thus defiDed : "To meet the present emergency, 
and respond to the call of the government for aid in re- 
lieving the wants of the sick and wounded in our armv, 
and also to supply those who may need suitable cloth- 
ing to make them comfortable." This was womanly 
work indeed, and it is plain that the society was faith- 
ful to its calling. The names of fifty women, and 
twenty-one men as honorary members, are written in 
the little book. Tinae goes so fast, and we have every 
reason to believe that it will go no more slowly after 
this book is printed than it has gone before, that I have 
added notes of explanation after each name, so far as I 
was able, so that after another fifty years these women 
may have yet some slight token of remembrance for the 
generation to whom they will be great-grandmothers. 
Every woman in her native town has (if she marries) 
two distinct names, her own, and her husband's. I have 
given both these names whenever I could. 

Mrs. William Richards (Mary Ann Henderson). Her 
son Henry was in Co. A. 

Mrs. Freeborn H. Page (Phebe Ann Yiall). A brother 
in the Fifth N. Y. Cavalry. 

Mrs. William Frisbie (Mary Orr.). 

Mrs. Piatt Sheldon (Asenath Braman). Two sons in 
the service, one killed. 

Mrs. Henry Eddy (Marietta Hickok). 

Mrs. Barton B. Richards (Almira Newell). 

Mrs. Wm. Harris (Jane Rachel Kent). 

Mrs. T. W. Harwood, wife of the Methodist minister. 



i 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT o47 

Mrs. Harry J. Persons (Maria Holcomb). A sou who 
died in hospital. 

Mrs. Abiathar Pollard (Hannah Douglass). 

Mrs. Keuben Whallon (Helen Mary Douglass). 

Mrs. Harriet M. Todd (the village milliner). 

Mrs. L. Edgerton (Lucetta Loveland). 

Mrs. Willard Ingalls (Elizabeth Greeley). 

Mrs. Ralph A. Loveland, (Harriet Kent). 

Mrs. Victor Spencer (Augusta Kent). 

Mrs. Aaron B. Mack (Jane McKinney). 

Mrs. Edmund J. Smith (Emma Larrabee). 

Mrs. William Wadhams (Emeline Cole). 

Mrs. Joseph Williams (Elizabeth Sheldon). 

Mrs. Guy Stevens (Mabel Stoddard). Two sons in 
the 77th. 

Mrs. Isaac Lyon (Lucinda Holcomb). Her son Wil- 
liam was killed in Virginia. 

Mrs. W^m. H. Richardson (Elizabeth Spencer.) 

Mrs. Miles M'F. Sawder (Caroline Halstead). Four 
sons in the war, one killed. 

Mrs. J. Nelson Barton (Phebe Maria Sawyer, her 
daughter.) 

Mrs. William Davis. 

Mrs. Albert P. Cole (Julia Hickok). 

Mrs. S. MclDtyre. 

Mrs. Elijah Newell (Harriet Baker). Two sons in 
the Confederate service. 

Mrs. Harriette Young. A son in the army. 

Mrs. Alvin Davis. Son in the 77th. 

31rs. Samuel Root (Cynthia Fisher). 



548 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Mrs. R. Odell. 

Mrs. Griffin. 

Mrs. C. B. Hatch (Margaretta Winans). 

Mrs. Potter. 

Mrs. Tatro (husband in the 77th). 

Mrs. Jerry Flinn. Her son Silas died in Salisbur}-, 
N. C. 

Mrs. Capt. Arnold (Marion Barber). 

Mrs. A. N. Greeley. 

Mrs. M. L. Daniels. 

Miss Susan A. Roberts. 

Miss M. A. Sheldon. 

Miss A. Heath. 

Miss H. Holcomb. 

Miss Eliza M. Lyon, who afterward married Major 
C. E. Stevens. 

Miss M. M. Holcomb. 

Miss Clara Spencer, a little girl six or seven years 
old. 

Miss Ann Gibbs, sister of Captain Gibbs. 
Honorarv Membei's. 

Barton B. Richards, John J. Greeley, C. H. Eddy, 
Victor Spencer, Aaron B. Mack, Rev. Mr. Harwood, of 
the M. E. church, Orren Howard, Freeborn H. Page, 
William Frisbie, Wm. H. Richardson, M. D., Lewis 
Roe, D. L. Allen, L. B. Newell, just beginning his first 
school in Westport, William Richards, J. W. Eddy, 
William Merriam, Walter Douglass, Wallace Olds, 
Jerry Flinn, Samuel Root, Henry Warren. 

The articles collected and completed ready for pack- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 549 

ing at the fourth meeting of the society, Dec. 18, 1861, 
were as follows : 42 comfortables, 32 pillows and cases, 
16 hospital shirts, 3 dressing gowns, 46 white linen 
towels, 22 brown towels, 50 pair mittens, 12 pair socks, 
2 knit caps, 16 pocket handkerchiefs, a large quantity 
of lint and bandages, a large amount and variety of 
dried fruit, 1 cheese, 1 vol. military tactics, som.e other 
books and papers. This list represents a great many 
stitches taken by women's hands in a month's time, for 
not. one article was factory made, and there was hardly 
a sewing machine in town,— indeed, I doubt if there 
was a single one. The record goes on : "Several gen- 
tlemen volunteered to assist in procuring boxes, mark- 
ing, packing, etc. Mr. William Frisbie and Mr. Jerry 
Flinn both volunteered to carry the boxes to the ex- 
press office in Vergennes, and Mr. Peter Ferris offered 
to ferry them across the lake free of charge. The two 
boxes were consigned to the care of Mr. Frisbie who 
carried them to Vergennes Monday morning, Dec. 23, 
1861, and returned a receipt from the express office for 
the same. Collected $11.50 to pay the express charges 
from Vergennes to Washington^ The boxes were re- 
ceived in good order by Co A, 77th Eeg't N. Y. S. Y., 
to whom they were sent. After they were opened, the 
company at their evening dress parade gave nine hearty 
cheers for the Ladies of Westport, which were taken 
up and repeated by every company in the regiment. 
Many letters were written home by various members of 
the company overflowing with thanks, and stating that 
the gifts were appreciated as only soldiers upon the 



550 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

tented field could appreciate such favors from friends 
at home." 

The further records of this society, being probabh' 
kept upon loose sheets, have been lost, but their meet- 
ings and their work were continued. After three years 
the society was reorganized. It is well-known that the 
National Sanitary Commission was not thoroughly or- 
ganized for the gigantic task of supplying the needs of 
our soldiers in camp and on the battle field until the 
last years of the war. The Secretary's book begins : 

"According to previous notice the patriotic Ladies 
and Gentlemen of Westport convened in the Methodist 
church August 15, 1864. Mr. William Frisbie was 
called to the chair. C. H. Nash (the Baptist minister) 
elected secretary pro tern. After listening to interesting 
remarks from gentlemen present, the meeting proceeded 
to organize a Ladies' Society by electing the following 
officers : 

Mrs. Ralph A. Loveland, President. 

Mrs. F. H. Page, Vice-President. 

Mrs. William Richards, Secretary. 

Mrs. William Frisbie, Treasurer. 
Directresses. 

Mrs. William Harris. 

Mrs. D. L. Allen (Clara Page). 

Mrs. A. M. Olds. 

Mrs. James Allen (Mary Cole). 

Mrs. Mabel Stevens. 

Mrs Gold (wife of the Methodist minister). 

Mrs. Harrv Cole. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT .6,^1 

Mrs. Piatt Sheldon. 

Mrs. Henry E. Warren (Mina Frisbie), 

Mrs. Samuel Root. 

Miss Kate Allen (two brothers in the war). 

Miss Delia Frisbie. 

The names found in the list of members are, almost 
without exception, the same as those of the original so* 
ciety, with these added ; 

Mrs. Cephas Bradley. 

Mrs. Noel Merrill (Pamela Cole). She had two sons 
aud a brother in the army. 

Mrs. Beuben.Ingalls (Mandana Holt). 

Mrs, James Barnes (her husband in the army). 

Mrs. C. E. Stevens (Eliza Lyon, married since the 
organization of the first so^uetv). 

Mrs. Warren Pooler, 

Mrs. H. Cole. 

Mrs. Gibbs. 

Mrs. Albert Carpenter (Mary Sheldon). 

Mrs. L. B, Newell (Sarah Purmort), 

Mrs. Braisted, 

Mrs. Alexander Stevenson. 

Mrs. Ransom Floyd (Juha Allen, of Panton). 

Mrs. Andrew Frisbie, 

Mrs. William Douglass (Marian Havens). 

Mrs. M. Howard. 

Mrs, Angler. 

Mrs. M. Hoisington, 

3Irs. Stephen Wright (wife of the Baptist minister), 

3IrSp Sturtevant 



552 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Misses Altnira Greeley, Sarah Lyon, Frances Love- 
land, Libbie Loveland, Clara Spencer, Frances Rich- 
ards, Lillian C. Richards, H. Stnrtevant, C. Harris, 
Louise Olds, Louise Dorraan, Louise Allen, Alzoa Reed, 
Carrie AVright, Nona Gold, Juliette Gold, Martha 
Young, Theresa Clark, Jennie Cole, Louise Cole, Helen 
Burt. 

Additional honorary members : Rev. Mr. Gold, Rev. 
C. H. Nash, Aaron Clark, Douglass Low, Henry H. 
Richards, John H. Sawyer, Albert P. Cole, Erastus 
Loveland, William Harris, E. Frapier, A. M. Olds, 
Orange Gibbs, Isaac D. Lyon, M. D. Howard, H. B. 
Howard, Peter Ferris, Charles H. Pattison, William J. 
Cole, Laurens White, Peter Bacon, Reuben Ingalls, G. 
W. Strauahan, Lorenzo Gibbs, John Osborne, O. Ben- 
nett, Frank H. Eddy, Percival P. Hatch, Charles W. 
Low, J. H. Dorman, Mr. Mitchell, A. Viall, L. Avery, A. 
Stringham. 

The name of the new^ society was "The Ladies' Sol- 
diers Relief Society Auxiliary to the Christian Commis- 
sion of the United States " It was addressed once or 
twice by speakers sent out by the Christian Commis- 
sion from its headquarters at Philadelphia, and it was 
to .Philadelphia that the boxes of supplies were sent. 
The committee for drafting the constitution of the so- 
ciety consisted of Mrs. Gold, Mrs. Ralph Loveland, Mrs. 
William Richards and Mrs. Victor Spencer, with the 
Rev. Mr. Gold and Mr. L. B. Newell. The committee 
appointed to pack and forward the first boxes of supplies 
■was Mrs. F. H. Page, Mrs. Y. Spencer and Mrs. C. E. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 553 

Stevens. "On motion Messrs. B. B. Eicliards and F.H. 
Pag« were invited to assist the committee by furnish- 
ing boxes, marking, etc., which assistance was cheer- 
fully rendered." Four boxes were forwarded Sept. 1, 
1864, and two afterward, containing articles similar to 
those in the first which were sent, with some additions, 
especially currant wine and blackberry cordial. One 
day all the young people of the village 'went into the 
back part of the town to pick blackberries which were 
euade into cordial and sent to the soldiers. On Octo- 
ber 21 a festival was held in the basement of the M. E. 
church at which the ladies served ice-cream, cake and 
fruit. The two young ladies appointed to solicit con- 
tributions were Frances Loveland and Frances Rich- 
ards. At the festival 1114.25 was raised, and $100.00 
immediately sent to the Christian Commission. In 
about tw^o months the society raised 1176.05, besides 
the supplies sent in six boxes. Once a piece of sheet- 
ing containing thirty-eight yards was purchased "to 
make into garments for hospital purposes," and the 
bill was S21.00, making the price of cotton cloth at that 
time a little over fifty-five cents a yard, the quality 
probably no better than that for which we now pay 
seven cents. At one time one hundred pounds of dried 
fruit and eight gallons of blackberry cordial and currant 
wine were sent to the soldiers. 

This was the first v/oman's society ever organized (I 
suppose) in Westport, brought about by the pressure 
cof a nation's need for woman's work. Public meetings 
were beld in both churches^ often addressed by speak- 



554 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

ers fi'otii abroad. The meetings for sewing and the 
trausaotion of business were held in the basements of 
the churches, and in the "Rechabites' Hall" over C. B. 
Hatch's store. These details, so dry to a stranger, are 
full of life to one who can remember the women as they 
sat at work together, talking about battles and camps 
and hospitals, and dropping many a tear upon the shirts 
and the mittens. In those' days they all wore hoops, 
and dresses were often flounced from hem to waist. 
The hats were tiny flat things, and the hair was woru 
in a large braided otnl at the back of the head, called a 
"chignon." 

The figures which have been given by no means rep- 
resent all the supphes actually sent, as there were many 
individual contril)utions, and there was a large amouot 
of work done at Wadhams, although there seems to 
have been no regularly organized society there. Ont> 
piece of the women's work has been movQ lasting thaa 
the rest, a quilt which Vv-as made up and sent to the 
boys of Company A. The blocks were pink, and in the' 
centre of earh was a square of white muslin. Each wo- 
man took one block to make^ and when it was done sho 
wrote her name in indelible ink on the white square. 
Can 3a)u imagine the soldiers bending over it when it 
came and reading the different names? At the end of 
the war the company gave this quilt to Mrs. A. W. Fay, 
of Jay, the wife of a soldier in the 118th, who accom- 
panied her husband through most of the campaigns.. 
She brought it home with her to, Essex County, and has. 
Ciiused it to he exhibited at the Couuty Fair, where it 



HISTORY OF WEST/'ORT 5d5 

has been the object of much interest, especially to 
Westport women. 

Although so far from the land of slavery, Westport 
had at least one contraband of war added to her popula- 
tion. When Dr. Piatt 11. H. Sawyer came home from 
the war he brou^^ht with hirn a black boy named Wil- 
liam Mallory, who had come into the Union camp, and 
had attached himself to the doctor as a kind of body- 
servant. Few W^estport children had at that time ever 
seen a colored man, and the writer well remembers the 
interest excited by the arrival of William, who remained 
for some time in the family. He was very quiet and 
well mannered, and often admonished us children in 
points of etiquette. Many years afterward, in 1904, I 
visited Virginia, and the name of Mallory Avenue in the 
village of Hampton reminded me of the William of my 
childhood. I began making inquiries, and I found an 
old colored man who told me that he had known Wil- 
liam Mallory well, that he returned to Virginia, mar- 
ried^ lived to middle age^ died, and was buried in the 
graveyard of old St. John's church. 

After the war the S. C. Dwyer Post of the G. A. li. 
was established, embracing the towns of Elizabethtowu, 
Lewis and Westport. Memorial Day exercises are held 
ill rotation in the villa^ges of Lewis, E'town Westport 
iiiid Wadhams. Successive Coninianclers of the Post 
have been Oscar A. Phinney, Daniel F. Payne, C. Wes- 
ley D&ndieis, Henry H. Eiehards, Daniel S. French and 
Alembert J. Durand. 

.Especially iiilerestiog Memorial exercises were held 



55(i HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

m the Westport High School in 1902, at which many 
of the old soldiers were present, and addressed the 
children upon the subject of their life in the army. 
Major Stevens read a written account of the history of 
Company A of the 77th, which has been the basis of 
the sketch given in this book. One remarkable fact 
connected with these exercises was tlAat the President 
of the Board of Education, sitting upon the platform 
with the gray-headed Union saldiers,--Dr, J. W. M. 
Shattuck,— was in the Confederate service as a medical 
officer during the war. He was born in Vermont, bufc 
was living in Mississippi at the time of the outbreak of 
hostilities,, and retun^ed to the north same time after 
the close of the war. Several young men horn in West- 
port fought under the Stars and Bars, Charles ami; 
Henry Newell, sous of Elijah NeweH, were living iu 
Louisiana at the opening of the war, and cast in their 
lot with the people with whom the}^ lived. This was 
also true of Gideon, son of Benjamin Warren. 

And so the war was over, and once more the towi^ 
life went an in the old, well worn way, tilling the soil^ 
trading for the necessaries of life, and keeping up the-, 
traditions af old tinie in the yearly election of towu 
officers, 

1866. 

Tow A Meeting held, iu the Arm^o^y. 

Samuel Root, Supervisor'. 

Heubeu J. Icgalls, Clerk. 

Aaron Clark at d Tkx\\ P. Pa<.yOie, Jt us,tie:es^ 

Israel Pattison, Assessor. 

William. O. NicUoIs., CaUeQtaw 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 557 

Charles A. Sweat. Hiorbway Commissioner. 

Peter Ferris and Charles C. Dunster, Poor Masters. 

A. C. Hall and Albert Pierce. Inspectors of Election. 

Hosea B. Howard. Harvey Pierce, Charles H. Sweat, 
Charles W. Holcomb, Peter Joubert, Constables. 

Pathmasters.—O. B. Howard, Granville Stone, R. W. 
Arnold, William O. Nichols, George W. Pattison. C. W. 
Holcomb, William Richards, P. D. Merriam, William T. 
Williams, James M. Whallon, K D. Stiirtevant, Eli Earns- 
worth, Edwin Kidder, Sylvester Youno-, Richard Eggles- 
ton, Ephraim Hill, Harvey Smith, Julius Vaughao, Herri- 
man Darjiels, Albert Carpenter, J. J. Greeley, F. B. How- 
ard, Solomon Stockwell, Luman Hubbard. J. F. Braisted, 
James E. Smith, Josepti Hodgkios, Jerome Baily, William 
Pierce, Webster Royce. Riley Palmer, Jerome B. Baily. 

Survey bill of a road leading westerly from W. P. & P. 
D. Merriam's Coal Kilns to the west line of Westport, be- 
ginning at a point west of said Merriams' store at the cen- 
ter of the highway, etc. 

Survey bill of a road leading northerly from the town 
.line between We.stixtrt and Moriah by the new Furnace, 
and intersecting the road running from Merriam 's Coal 
Kilns to the West line of VVest|>ort, beginning where the 
road crosses the town Hue, near a large rock marked T.L. 
"Surveyed by R. H. Lee. 

^'Tlie New Furaaee'" here mentioned in the bare 
-chronicle of the road surveys means the iron furnace in 
the southwest corner of the town, surrounded by the 
little mushroom settlement which is known in Westport 
as "Seventy-five," though perhaps more commonly 
(tailed "Fletcherville" in Moriah. The iron works are 
thus described in Watson's history, published in 1869. 

''This furnace is situated seven and a ha!f miles 
aiorthwest of Port Henry. It is owned by Messrs. S. 
H. k J. G. Witherbee k F. P. Fletcher; its erection 
was -comm-enced in 1864, and it was blown in in August, 
1865. The stack is of stone, and the boiler house of 
liricL The height of the furnace is forty-two feet, and 



o58 m STORY OF WESTFORT 

the width of the boshes eleven feet. Steam is the mo- 
tive power of the works, and charcoal the only fuel con- 
sumed. This is burnt in ten large kilns, capable of 
containing sixty-five co?"ds of wood. Nearly fifty 
bushels of charcoal is yielded in these kilns by every 
cord of seasoned w^ood. The company own extensive 
ranges of timber land, which supplies the material for 
the kilns. The average product per week of this fur- 
nace has been at some periods seventy-six and a half 
tons per week. A large proportion of the iron produced 
here is manufactured in the Ressemer works of Troy, 
Mr. Thomas F, Weatherbee, is the resident agent and 
manager at this furnace." 

In the Essex County history of 1885 this furnace is 
not so much as mentioned, and it was probably not in 
operation more than ten years, perhaps not so long as 
that, None of the ore used in this furnace was obtained 
from Westport mines, although a shaft was sunk on 
AVestport territory a little west of the school house at 
Seventy-five, to be soon abandoned and known hence- 
forth by the descriptive title of the "Humbug mine." 
Ores from the Moriah mines were worked up as long 
as the furnace ran, and vvhen it had devoured all the 
wood upon the mountains for miles around, it stopped 
for want of fuel, and the machinery was afterward re- 
moved. The furnace is now a heap of ruins^ and the 
settlement another "Deserted Yiilage" of the Adirou- 
dacks. 

Much more nearly affecting Westpart as a town waa 
another iron enterprise,, entirely distinct from the his- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 550 

tory of the Moriah miues, which stirred the sleepy little 
village of the cla3's clirectl}^ after the war into a motnen- 
tary activity. A.S early as 1864 a company known as the 
Lake Champlain Ore and Iron Company, purchased an 
interest in most of the Elizabethtown mines and forges, 
which had been in operation, more or less, since the es- 
tablishment of a forge at New Russia, on the Boquet, 
in 1802- This company was closely connected with the 
banking firm of Jay Cook & Co. of Philadelphia, which 
had been the agent of the United States for the war 
loans during the Civil War. Its representative in this 
region was Mr, K. Remington, who came first to Eliza- 
bethtown, and operated there for two or three years, 
i>uying the Haasz, Burt, Steel, Odell and Mitchell ore 
beds, besides the Valley Forp^e on the Boqiiet, the 
Kingdom or Noble Forge on the Black, and eleven 
thousand acres of woodland, investing, it is said, $100,> 
OOO in the whole. An ore bed in Westport was also 
purchased, lying high up on the side of Campbell Hill, 
just north of Nichols pond. This bed had been opened 
before 1850,and the ore worked up in the Valley Forge.on 
the Boquet, with considerable saecess. It is said to have 
made iron of a very fine grain, and extraordinarily duc- 
5tile, Since these are the qualities of the fanjous Nor- 
way iron, the new owners of the mine called it the Nor- 
<ivay bed. It lies on lots Nos, 166 and 168, Iron Ore 
Tract,, not far from Elizabethtown line. There are two 
-openings, the northern of which, according to the Bul- 
letin of the New York State ^Juseunj, published 1895, 



560 HISTORY OF WJJSTPOET 

shows the most valuable body of ore iu the town of 
Westport. 

In 1868 the Lake Champlain Ore & Iron Compauj 
bought the Halstead house and land, between Main 
street and the lake shore, (now the grounds of the 
Westport Inn,) and also the William J. Cutting place 
at the head of Liberty street, upon which are now found 
the golf links. Additional territory along the lake front 
was obtained by the purchase of a narrow strip from 
Minerva Clark, whose house stood on Main street, and 
a number of acres from Israel Pattison. In the fall of 
1869 a large furnace was built upon the lake shore, and 
a wharf thrown out a little to the north of it. Liberty 
street was opened to the lake for the first time, to give 
access to the wharf and furnace, and the compauy 
made a road from Main street to their works. The 
furnace stood upon the line between the Halstead prop- 
erty and the land south of it. It was not so large nor 
so expensive as the Sisco furnace at Jacksonville, built 
twenty years before, and it manufactured but a small 
quantity of iron, never making large shipments. For 
the masonry of the works the Gibbs brothers of West- 
port,- -Orauge Gibbs being the head of this firm,— were 
employed by the contractors. 

The furnace was named, I think, the Norway Fur- 
nace, but the village people always called it the New 
Furnace, and the wharf the New Wharf. The ore which 
was made into iron here came from the Elizabethtowu 
mines, and from the Norway bed at Nichols pond. The 
transportation, of the ore to the furnace wa,s the greaA-- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 561 

est problem of the enterprise, and one which the com- 
pany never solved. There was no railroad through 
Essex county then, and all the iron manufactured must 
go south by water, on canal boats, from the company's 
wharf. The ore lay on a mountainside sixteen hundred 
feet higher than the furnace, and about five miles away 
in an air-line, but no one expected the ore to come 
down on an air-line. A separator was built on the 
shore of the pond, below the mine, and a tram-road 
was planned to run from the separator to the furnace, 
crossing the highway near the McMahon place. It was 
to be ballasted with tailings from the mine, and it 
crossed an arm of the pond. The rails were actually 
laid as far as the highway, and some cars of the sepa- 
rated ore were run down, and their contents loaded upon 
wagons to be carried to the furnace, but the work was 
abandoned before the road was put in good working 
condition. This tram road was laid out to pass within 
forty rods of the Merriam mine, which had been opened 
in 1867, on lot No. 165, south of the Norway mine, but 
although some of the ore from the Merriam was trans- 
ported to Merriam's Forge, (a distance of ten miles or 
more,) it was all carried on the town's highway. 

Two years from the time that the Norway Fur- 
nace was erected, it was evident that Westport need 
hope for no era of prosperity from the development of 
her iron mines by the Lake Champlain Ore & Iron Com- 
pany. The history of the enterprise is simply the his- 
tory of an experiment, and one which proved signally 
unsuccessful, the net results to the town being little 



o62 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

more than one or two additioDS to her interesting col- 
lection of ruins. The failure of the firm of Jay Cook & 
Co., on Sept. 19, 1873,— the "Black Friday" which be- 
gan the disastrous panic of that year, — occurred some 
time after the business in Westport had been suspend- 
ed, and there is no connection between the two events. 
The separator on the shore of the lonely pond and the 
furnace far below on the shore of the lake were suf- 
fered to fall slowly in decay, the machinery rusting 
with neglect and damp. For years it was a favorite 
pretext for an idle stroll to wander down to the shore 
and look around the New Furnace, which lay open to 
any visitor. In the ojap of 1876 four buildings are 
shown still standing at that time, but in 1887 the last 
traces of the unsightly ruins were removed. 

Eventually most of the property passed into the 
hands of a company with a slightly different name, — 
the Lake Cham plain- Ore Company, but the Halstead 
house stood in the name of the F. P. Fletcher estate. 
The Pattison farm returned to its owner through fore- 
closure. Mr. John A. Griswold, the great iron manu- 
facturer of Troy, undertook the settlement of the busi- 
ness in Westport, and afterward Gen. Marvin, also one 
of the iron men of Troy, owned the Halstead property, 
and when the house was converted into a hotel, in 1876, 
it was called the Marvin House, on this account. 

Mr. K Remington, the agent of the company, during 
his residence in Westport boarded with Mrs. Har- 
riet Sheldon in t)ie Cutting house. This house was 
also connected with the history of the Sisco furnace. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 563 

since it was occupied for five or six years by Hon. 
George W. Goff, when he owned the property at Jack- 
sonville. Mr. Remington was a gentleman in the first 
stages of consumption when he came into the Adiron- 
dacks, and after the conclusion of the business, (about 
1871) he started for California, but died upon the way 
thither. Various people connected with the iron works 
lived in the Halstead and the Cutting houses, among 
others Mr. Schubert, and Mr. Crowley, of Baltimore, 
who built the tram road. 

It cannot have been long after the enterprise of the 
Norway Furnace that the Split Rock ore bed was 
opened, on the steep lakeward side of the mountains, 
directly opposite Fort Cassin. It is said that William 
M. Tweed, the famous Grand Sachem of Tammany, in- 
vested funds, public or private, in this mine, but his 
connection with it cannot have been of long duration, 
as his dramatic downfall and imprisonment occurred in 
1871. After the railroad, in 1876, opened communica- 
tion with the south, some Albany parties worked the 
mine and built the separator on the water's edge, the 
ore sliding down from the mine by gravity. The board- 
ing house was built then, and the workmen's houses, on 
a narrow shelf seven hundred feet above the lake, 
reached from the wharf by long flights of ladderlike 
stairs, with hundreds of steps. The landward approach 
was across the Split Rock range from the Essex high- 
way. 

We mast not leave this year without its record of the 
^^rst match game of modern base ball ever played in 



564 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

the couDty, between the Adirondacks of Elizabethtown 
and the Monitors of Westport, in July, at the county 
seat. The Monitors who phiyed that day were R. W. 
Arnold, C. E. Stevens, George, Charles and Warren 
Pattison, Rush and Harvey Howard, Henry Merrill 
and Henry Sheldon, with Jim Barnes as one of the 
scorers. 

1867. 

TowQ Meetino: held in the Armory. 

Samuel Root, Supervisor. 

George W. Cole, Clerk. 

James A. Allen, Justice. 

Eli Farnsworth, Assessor. 

William O. Nichols, Collector. 

Levi Frlsbie, Albert Carpenter, Edward Kidder, High- 
way Commissioners. 

B. A. Barrett, Charles W. Holcomb, Poor Masters. 

Charles E. Stevens, Ansel C. Hall, Hinkiey Coll, Inspec- 
tors of Election. 

Edwin B. Low, Charles W. Holcomb, Edwin Lawrence, 
Charles H. Sweet, Constables. 

Pathmasters. — Henry Sheldon, Melvin Carpenter, Henry 
E. Warren, Major Barber, Augustus P. Holt, Charles W. 
Hobomb, A. C. Lewis, P. D. Merriam, Aldeu Sibley, Cy- 
rus B. Royce. Henry Lafayette, Dorr Howard, Charles C. 
Dunster, Dewitt Hooper, D. R. Woodruff, Ephraim Hill, 
Harvey Smith, Julius Vaughan; Herriman Daniels. E. J. 
Smith, Eleazer Welch, Alvin Burt, Solomon Stock well, 
Lewis Cleland or J. Ferris, J. F. Braisted, John E. Smith, 
Orrin Taylor, Guy Frisbie, Martin Pierce, John Fortune. 
Jerome B. Baile^', D. L. Allen. 

April 23 an election was held to choose delegates to the 
Constitutional Convention. Whole number of votes given 
for Senatorial Delegates to the Convention, 121. 

In March of 1867 the M. E. church was rededicated, 

having been enlarged and remodeled the previous ye^r. 

Twenty feet were added to its length, and the expense 

of the alterations amounted to $4000. The pastor at 



in STORY OF WESTPORT 56d 

this time was the Rev. David Lytle, At the redeclica- 
tiou services, the Rev. E. Went worth, D. D., of Troy, 
and the Rev. J. E. Bo wen, presiding elder of the Plattts^ 
burg District, were present. The trustees were D. L. 
Allen, Samuel Root, P. D. Merriam, William Frisbie, 
Aaron Clark, and C. W. Holcomb. The committee on 
repairs, Samuel Root, P. D. Merriam, and D. L. Allen. 
Aaron Clark was the builder, all the work being done 
under his supervision. This was now the leading church , 
in numbers and wealth, as it has since remained. In 
1881 the membership was two hundred and fourteen, 

1868, 

Town Meeting held in the Armory, 

Barton B. Richards, Supervisor. 

Henry H. Biehardg, Clerk. 

Philetus D. Merriam, Justice, 

Alvin Burt, Assessor. 

William O. Nichols, Collector, 

James M. Wballon, Highway Commissioner. 

Charles W. Hoicomb and Kittredgt Cross, Poor Masters. 

Hinckley Coll, Cyrus W. Richards, Laurens H. White, 
Inspectors of Election. 

William O. Nichols. Charles W. Holcomb, J. C. Osborne, 
Frank Sweatt, Alfred E. Williams, Constaoles. 

Harvey Pierce appointed constable. 

For this year we will give the names of the pathmas- 
ters in connection with the road district in which each 
one lived. Since the adoption, in 1903, of the new sys- 
tem of road working, these road districts are no longer 
Important as actual divisions, but are given as so much 
nncient history. In another half century the names 
ij.nd places mentioned will have a quaint interest forthe 
iiiheritors of the soil of Westport. 



566 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Boundaries of Road Districts : 

No. 1. Beginning at the north line of Piatt Sheldon's 
farm, and running to the south line of O. B. Howard's 
farm. Pathmaster, Orren B. Howard, 

2. Beginning at the town line, running north to the 
south line of Samuel Root's farm. Henry Stone. 

3. Beginning at the south line of Samuel Boot's 
farm, and running north to the north line of Charles 
Pattison's farm, including the road from Coil's Mills to 
the Warren school house. Charles H. Fattison. 

4. At the house of James W. Coll, running east and 
north by Archibald Pattison's to the south line of A. 
P. Holt's farm, including the road to Barber's Point 
and Young's Bay. Henry Frishie. 

5. At the north line of Charles Pattison's farm, run- 
ning north to the west end of the bridge, thence south 
along the plank road to James A. Allen's wharf, thence 
up the hill to the w est corner of Page and Eddy's store : 
including road from Nelson Barton's wheelwright shop 
to Charles H. Eddy's by N. J. Barton's house ; also 
from the guide board at A. P. Holt's on the lake road 
to the south line of A. P. Holt's farm. Israel Fattison. 

6. At the forks of the road near Patrick Boyle's 
house, running east to the forks of the road near the 
gate. Enoch Gregory. 

7. At the top of the hill in front of the Union School 
house, running north by the "half way rock" near 
Asa Viall's ; also the road running northeast to the 
brook crossing the road near the house of A. A. Allen. 
Almon A. Allen. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 567 

8. At the bridge near the Moses Felt place, runniDi^ 
north by Merriam's Forge until it intersects the road 
leading from Wadhams Mills to Essex ; including as 
much of said road as lies between a well situated a few 
rods west of P. D. Merriam's house, and the town line. 
Willimn P. Merriam. 

9. At the brook near Almond Allen's house, running 
north to the north line of T. Pottery's farm, including 
the road running west by Asahel Havens to the Moses 
felt bridge. William T. Williams. 

10. At the north line of T. Pocterj^'s farm, running 
north to the north line of the town near Whallonsburg, 
including the road to M. P. Whallons. Gyrus B. Royce. 

11. At the iorks of the road near the Angier school 
house, running north to the town line, including the 
road by Webster Rojce's to the town line. Henry La~ 
fayeite. 

12. From the half way rock north to the town line 
near John K Whitney's including the road' from the 
grist mill up the hill to the forks of the road where the 
Presbyterian church formerly stood ; also the road 
leading west, a little north of Elijah W^right's, to the 
east line of Henry Betts' lot. William Laivreuce. 

13. From the corner of the road at the Exchange 
Hotel, east to a well situated a few rods west of build- 
ings now occupied by P. D. Merriam, including the road 
past Henry Dunster's to the Felt Bridge, and the road 
to Benjamin's Hardy's. Edwin Ames. 

14. From the corner where the Presbyterian church 
formerly stood, west of Sylvester Young's to the plank 



568 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

road, including the road frona District No. 27 to Joseph 
Hodgkins. Joseph Hodgldns. 

15. From the corner where the Presbyterian church 
formerly stood, west to the east line of Isaac Johnson's 
farm, including the road running north past A. Hart- 
well's to the north line. D. B. Woodruff. 

16. From the Widow Bowers' place, south across 
the plank road to the run near old Southwell place. 
Howard Farnsivoiih. 

17. From the forks of the road near Samuel Storrs', 
east by Harvey Smith's to the road from the Wihard 
Hartwell place to Julius Vaughan's. Edgar Hill. 

18. Froai Julius Yaughan's west line, east to John 
Bromley's house. Marcus J. Hoisiugton. 

19. From Julius Vaughan's w^est Hue, west to the 
bridge near Meigs' Forge, thence south to the Steel 
Mill. Herriman Daniels. 

20. From the southeast corner of Harry 3. Persons' 
hotel, west and south to the south line of D. M. Howard's 
farm. IJ. Mansfield Howard. 

21. From D. M. Howard's house, west to M. J. 
Hoisington's including the road from Abram Greeley's 
to Eleazar Welch's west line. J. J. Greeley. 

22. From Orren Howard's south line, south to the 
town line. Alvin Burt. 

23. From the corner of the road near the Steven- 
son school house, west to the town line. Orseraus Sfock- 
well. 

• 24. From the bridge at Brainard's Forge, northeast 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 560 

to the town line near Clelands, and from Lee Prouty's 
across to 1. Johnson's. Jul'ms Ferris. 

25. From the Felt bridge south to A. A. Allen's. 
Abram Sherman, Jr. 

2a From near Abram Greeley's, west to W. P.Mer- 
riam's west line on the mountain. John E. Smith.. 

27. From the corner near I. Johnson's, south to the 
north line of District No. 14. Leonard Taylor. 

28. From the corner near Julius Vaughan's, north 
to the plank road. Martin Vaaghan. 

29. From the corner near Brainard's Forge, south 
by Sam Pierce's to the north line of Widow Bowers, 
also from the bridge at Brainard's Forge east to the 
line of Isaac Johnson. Rufus Hodgkins. 

30. From the south line of John Mather's land to 
the south line of the town of Essex. John Fortune. 

31. From the west line ot Wm. P.Merriam's mount- 
ain, south to the Seventy-five Furnace. Thomas With- 
erhee. 

33. From the plank road near Charles Holcomb's, 
east to D. L. Allen's wharf, thence south by Allen's 
store, and west through the lane to the main road, be- 
tween D. S. McLeod and William Barnard. William 
W. Olds. 

On August 27, 1868, the school district at Seventy- 
five was formed, and called No. 14, The consentino- 
trustees were Walter Tefft of Moriah, William F. Hau- 
chett of Elizabethtown, and Alvin Burt, Melvin Car- 
penter and John Stevenson of Westport. H. Riley 
Palmer was resident at Seventv-five. 



570 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



StatemeDt of result of General Election, Nov. 3 
Whole number of votes for Governor; — for John A. 
Griswold, 252 ; for John T. Hoffman, 135. Vote for 
Inspector of State Prisons, 386 ; for Henry xA.. Barnum, 
242 ; for David B. McNeil, 144. Votes for Member of 
Assembly, 386 ; for Samuel Root, 257 ; for Abiathar 
Pollard, 139. 

Thus we see that Col. Root went to the Assembly 
this year, as he also did in 1869. 



1869. 

Town Meetiog held at the Armory. 

Lewis H. Roe, Supervisor. 

Edwia B. Low, Clerk, 

Cyreous R. Payne, Justice. 

Israel Pattisou, Assessor. 

Henrv H. Merrill, Collector. 

Marcus Storrs and Charles C. Dunster, Highway Com- 
missiouers. 

Harley Clark and Samuel Pierce, Poor Masters. 

James E. Barnes, George A. Skinner and Hinkley Coll, 
Inspectors of Election. 

Pcithmasters. — William Floyd, Alexander Stevenson, 
Henry Warren. Henry H. Merrill, H. B. Howard, Enoch 
Gregory, Asa Viall, P. D. Merriam, Edmund Floyd, James 
M. Whallon, Henry Lafayette, Orrin F. Hardy, R. Hustis, 
Artemas Hartwell. Harvey Drake, Franklin Vaughau, 
Patrick Boyle, Heman Franklin, Albert Carpenter. War- 
ren Pooler, Heni-y Stone. Orlin Stockwell, George Palmer, 
Abram Sherman, John E. Smith, Ozro Taylor, Col. Ben- 
nett, Martin Pierce, John Fortune, Thomas Wither bee, D. 
L. Allen. 

In July D. L. Allen was appointed Assessor. 

In October Harvey Pierce was appointed Constable. J. 
H. Allen, Justice. 

This year's supervisor, Lewis H. Roe, was a nephew 

of the Hon. George W. Goff, and succeeded him in the 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 571 

management of the Sisco furnace and the property at 
Jacksonville. The Koes came from Scotland to Amer- 
ica about 1730, and settled in Orange county, N. Y., 
before the Kevolution. The first iui migrant was Jesse 
Eoe, and his son, Captain Nathaniel Roe, was one of 
first settlers of Chester, N. Y. His son Daniel was the 
father of Dr. Genest Roe, who married Elizabeth Goflf, 
sister of George W., Robert, aud Sophia, who married 
Silas H. Witherbee. The children of Dr. Genest Roe 
were: Lewis H., George G.: Alice, who married Prof. 
E. J. Owen ; Sophia, who married Jonathan G. Wither- 
bee of Port Henry ; Mary, who married John W. 
Whitehead of Port Heury ; and Jeunie, who mar- 
ried Charles E. Hall of Philadelphia. Mrs. Elizabeth 
Roe lived at Jacksonville until her death, and her 
daughter, Mrs. Hall, now owus the place. Mrs. Hall's 
daughters are Sophia and Josephine, the latter now 
Mrs. Robertson Marshall. 

In April of 1869 occurred the great flood upon Mill 
Brook in Moriah, caused by the rapid melting of the 
snow with heavy rains. 



1870. 

Town Meeting held at the Armory. 
Lewis H. Roe. Supervisor. 
James H. Allen, Clerk. 
Edwin B. Low, Justice. 

William R. Lawrence aud Milo Gibbs, Assessors. 
James E. Barnes, Collector. 
Levi Fi-isbie, Highway Commissioner. 
Peter Ferris and Edwin Kidder, Poor Masters. 
Charles E. Stevens, Orrin Hardy aud Cvrus Richards. 
Inspectors of Election. 



o72 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

Harvey Pierce, James E. Barnes, Enoch Gregor3^ Rich- 
ard BrowD. xVlvin Davis. Constables. 

Patbmasters. — Henry Sheldon, Alexander Stevenson, 
Charles Pattison, Ai'chibald Pattisou, Israel Pattison, 
Enoch Greu^ory, Joshua Bennett, Willian] P. Merriani, 
William T. Williams,. Cyrus B. Royce, Henry Lafayette, 
Henry Betts, CyrenusR. Reed, D. Hooper, G. H Pierce, 
Ephraim Hill, Henry Willard, Barney Boyle, Charles Pat- 
ten, Harvey Howard, Warren Pooler, F. B. Howard, Or- 
lin Stockwell: Geortre Palmer, J. F. Braisted, John E. 
Smith. Ozi'o Taylor. John Quincy Adams J. T. Johnson, 
John Fortune, Sorel Fountain, M. Flinn. 

D. F. Payne was appointed Assessor in place of William 
Ijawrence, who refused to serve. Israel Patiison was ap- 
pointed Assessor in the place of Milo Gibbs, who refused 
to serve. William Joiner appointed Constable. 

This year it was found necessar}^ to purchase a new 

book for the keeping; of the town records, which is stili 

in use. The present writer has not performed the labor 

of copying the records in the new book, leaving that for 

a future volume and (probably) a future historian. The 

supervisors and town clerks for the past thirty-two 

years have been as follows : 

1871. Town meeting in the Armory. Edwin B. Low, 
Supervisor. Twenty-four years before this his father, 
John H. Low, had held the same office. The Lows, 
father and son, were also justices of the town for the 
greater part of the lives of each, doing much of the legal 
business required in the vicinity. James li. Allen, 
Clerk. 

1872. In the Armory. William P. Merriam, Super- 
visor. James H. Allen, Clerk. 

1873. In the Armory. William P. Merriam, Super- 
visor. James H. Alleu» Clerk. Pwesigning in May^ 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT J57S 

probably to remove to Port Henry, his father, D. L. 
Allen, was appointed Clerk in his place. 

1874. In the Town Hall, meaning that the Armory 
had been purchased by the town, and was now called 
the Town Hall. Samuel Root, Supervisor. Frank H. 
Eddy, clerk. 

1875. Daniel F. Payne, Supervisor. William C. 
Pollard, Clerk- This was the son of Dr. Abiathar Pol- 
lard. 

1876. Andrew J. Daniels, Supervisor. William C. 
Pollard, Clerk. It is only fair to remark that Mr. Dan- 
iels was the first one of the only two Democrats who 
have been elected supervisor since the war. Westport 
is solidly and stolidlyRepublican and conservative, as 
the election returus for forty years will show, and when 
a Democrat is elected to office it may fairly be taken to 
indicate the popularity of the candidate. 

1877. Charles D. Sprague, Supervisor. Charles Ed- 
soD Stevens, Clerk. 

1878. Charles D. Sprague, Supervisor. Charles Ed- 
fson Stevens, Clerk. 

1879. Samuel Root, Supervisor. M. Judson Hickok, 
Clerk. 

1880. Merritt A. Clark, Supervisor. Frank H. 
Eildy, Clerk, and i-e-elected to this office, with the ex- 
ception of one year, for twenty-oue years, to the time 
<of his death, in 1901. 

1881. Merritt A. Clark. 

1882. Charles D. Spracrue. 

1883. Merritt A. Clark. 



574 HISTORY OF WKSTPORT 

188^. Dauiel F. Payne. 

1885. Freeborn H. Page. 

188(3. Freeborn H. Page. 

1887. Freeborn H. Page. 

18S8. Huiy H. Ri thirds. Mr. Richards is the 
second Democrat elected to this office in the term of 
3'ears mentioned. 

1888. Ellery J. Sherman. This year the town meet- 
ing was held for the first time in tlie new Library build- 
ing, which had been opened the preceding summer, and 
each town meeting since that time has been held in the 
same plac^. 

1890. Ellery J. Sherman. 

1891. Ellery J. Sherman. 

1892. Daniel F. Payne, Sapervistn-. Low E. Fuller. 
Clerk. 

1893. Daniel F. Pa^nie, Supervisor. Frank H. Eddy, 
Clerk. 

1891:. Luther Board man Newell, Supervisor. This 
was the last election under the old law of annual town 
meetings. Henceforth all town officers held office for 
two years. Mr. Newell dying in office, Mr. Augustus 
P. Holt was appointed Supervisor in his place. 

1896. Augustus P. Holt. 

1898. Augustus P. Holt. 

1901. Samuel H. Hodgkins. The Town Clerk, Mr. 
Frank H. Eddy, dying in office, Mr. George B. Rich- 
ards, his brother-in-law, was appointed in his place. 

Justices of the peace since 1879 have been William 
Douglass, C. Wesley Daniels, James A. Allen, Fred V. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 575 

Lester, Charles C. Danster, Frank B. Royce, Scotfc E. 
Phinney, James E. Patten, and Case Howard, the last 
four now holding office. 

1870-1875. 

The five years from 1870 to 1875 complete the history 
of the Old Westport,— the Westport without a rail- 
road, and without a summer season devoted to stran- 
gers. Dull and listless was the little place, with the 
Days of Lumber far back in history, and the Days of 
Iron just acknowledged as hopelessly past, although 
there was in reality another decade of iron production 
in the near future. One event of this short period was 
the building of the lighthouse at Barber's Point in 1873. 

Split Eock light had burned for twenty-five years 
and that at Crown Point for fifteen, but there was as 
yet no guide for a midnight mariner seeking to enter 
Northwest bay. The light of Barber's Point is visible 
fifteen miles, and the tower is eighty-three feet high, 
forming part of the dwelhng of the keeper. The whole 
structure is of stone, built at the top of a steep descent 
into deep water, where the scarred rocks show tremen- 
dous action of water and ice, exposed as they are to the 
full force of the strongest winds, waves and currents 
found upon the whole length of the lake. From the 
land the place is easily accessible, and a charming spot. 
The first keeper of the light was Sergeant James E. 
Barnes, an old soldier who had lost one leg in the serv- 
ice, and the present one is Major C. E Stevens of the 
77th N. Y. V. 



576 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 



lu the spring of 1875, just as the ice was breaking up 
in the lake, the Hunter hc^use was burned upon North 
Shore, at Hunter's bay. It occurred in the evening, 
and the unwonte I light was soi^ju observed from tlie 
village. It was two miles away by water and four by 
land, but men ran down to the boat houses on the shore 
and took out the boats which had lain there all winter, 
launched them and pushed oti', making their way as 
best tliey could with lanterns between the floating cakes 
of ice. Others hastened to the scene- by land, but no 
one arrived in time to be of material assistance, as the 
house witii nearly all its contents burned tothe ground. 
Mr. Hunter was at the time a helpless invalid, and Mrs. 
Hunter, before any help came, had herself brought him 
out to a place ot safety, then returning for a box of val- 
uable papers she was overcome and fell to the floor 
insensible. At this moment the farmer who lived in 
tlie farmhouse upon the place arrived, and going into 
the burning house discovei'ed Mrs. Hunter upon the 
floor and brouglit her out. The house was not rebuilt 
until 1902. 

Als(j upon North Shore, that same summer, the 
steamer Ohamjjiain was wrecked. In those days, be- 
fore the railroad was built upon our side of the lake, 
there were two regular line steamers toucliing at our 
wharf daily, a day boat and a night boat. The night 
boat was the Champlain, making her lauding at near 
midnight. One clear, still, moonlight night near the mid- 
dle of July she touched at our wharf, discharging freight 
and passengers, the lattei* numbering several of the 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 577 

first summer boarders who had found us out. The 
steamer went on her way, but when she came to the 
northern point of the bay, just beyond Rock Harbor, a 
place where her course lay close under the shore, and 
in water two or three hundred feet deep, she failed to 
make the necessary turn around the point, and ran 
upon it, the force of her engines lifting her out of the 
water as her bow slid up upon a shelving rock. There 
she hung over a backbone of rock, her great timbers 
straining and breaking amidships, with her bow out of 
the water and the waves washing in at the stern win- 
dows, and setting the dining room afloat. There was 
no panic among the crew, and the passengers were soon 
set ashore in safety, the gang-plank being run out to 
the shore, quite in the ordinary way, with trunks and 
valises following as though lake steamers commonly 
made landings at midnight on lonely and uninhabited 
shores, with bewildered passengers hustled off to sit on 
the rocks until morning. Soon after daybreak the tug 
A. Williams came along and was signalled alongside 
the wreck, and the passengers transferred to her deck 
for the continuance of the voyage. 

Perhaps the very tameness of this shipwreck, in 
which no lives were lost, gave rise to the story that it 
was premeditated, and a neat device of the Transporta- 
tion Company to obtain the insurance of an old boat. 
For my part, I have never been able to believe it pos- 
sible that men would so risk their own lives in so dan- 
gerous an experiment. Close off the point upon which 
the Cham plain struck, the water measures from one 



578 



HISTORY OF WESTFOET 



hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in depth, smooth 
rocks dropping sheer down beneath the water, and 
had she rebounded as she struck, or had she struck 
only a few feet farther from shore, she would have sunk 
out of sight with all on board as soon as she could have 
filled with water. If it was planned, it was well planned, 
and an example of the fine art of wrecking. Captain 
George Rashlow was then in command of the Cham- 
plain, and the pilot was John Eldridge. The latter left 
the boat instantly as soon as she struck, made his way 
to the shore and wandered off into the woods upon the 
the mountain sides. At daybreak he came to the house 
of Col Lee, about four miles from the scene of the 
wreck, seeming to be completely lost, and too much 
dazed to be able to give a clear account of his recent 
experience. All this served to give a touch of mystery 
to the event which greatly added to the enjoyment of 
the village people as they rose to the comprehension of 
the fact that this startling occurrence, a genuine hope- 
less, disastrous wreck, had been sent to these shores by 
that especial Providence which sometimes remembers 
the Places Where Things Never Happen. It was printed 
in the New York papers that there had been a Wreck 
near Westport, and we felt that now we might dare to 
defy Oblivion. There was a distinct sense of wistful 
regret that the wreck in itself had not been more shock- 
ing, so as to attract more attention in foreign parts, but 
we made the most of the story as it was. On the pro- 
gram of the next school exhibition, arranged by a 
teacher with a fine eye for local efi'ect, stood these 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 579 

words : 'Toeai -The Wreck of the Champlain," aud the 
village poet, then a young girl, did her best at working 
up the dramatic points of the incident. The poet lias 
not felt herself the centre of so tremendous an occasion 
since the night when she read that poem to the solemn- 
faced rows of people sitting on the rude benches of the 
old school-house. There was one place in the poem 
where there had been a dreadful struggle between the 
rhyme and the grammar. It is now quite forgotten which 
went to the wall, but it was full twenty years afterward 
before it occurred to the poet that that particular stanza 
might perhaps have been left out. But she remembers 
with gratitude the sturdy patriotism which applauded 
with undiscriminating admiration, and has never regret- 
ted that she helped to heighten the effect of an unusual 
incident in our history. 

The point upon which the Champlain was wrecked 
has since been known as Calamity Point. 

Modern Histoi*y. 

1876-1904. 

With the last quarter of the nineteenth century may 
be said to begin the story of the New Westport. In 
1876 came the railroad, connecting Albany with Mon- 
treal, and giving us for the first time swift access to 
either. That this railroad, owned by the Delaware k 
Hudson Canal Company, runs along the precipitous 
shore of the lake, instead of through the comparatively 
smooth valley followed bv the Old State Road through 



580 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Schroon and Lewis to Keeseville, is entirely due to the 
great iDflneDce of the town of Moriah, strong in her 
iron interests, and seconded by all the lake towns as 
far as lay in their power. Westport was bonded for 
$25,000. The road as a whole presented great engi- 
neering difficulties, but its passage through the central 
valley of Westport, avoiding both our mountain systems, 
called for no tunneling nor extensive blasting. Regu- 
lar trains began running in time to carry Essex County 
people to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, 
and to many a native youth that summer was the first 
which gave him a glimpse of the wide, wide world. 
Now came the decline of the lake traffic, with its many 
romantic conditions, afterward partially restored by the 
increase of summer traveling for pleasure. And with 
the railroad arose the era of the summer boarder, with 
all which that implies. 

For another reason the year 1876 marks a division 
line in our village history, in that it was the 
year of the Great Fire, a calamity which cleared the 
way for many changes. It occurred on the night of 
August 15, originating, probabl}' by accident, in the 
stables of the old Lake House, and sweeping southward 
along Main street until the hotel, the corner block owned 
by D. L. Hooper and R. J. Ingalls, the dwelling house 
of V. C. Spencer and the Baptist church were consumed. 
Then the wind shifted ever so little from north to west, 
and the brick corner block across the street, containing 
the stores of C. H. Eddy, E. B. Low and Amos Pres- 
cott, was also destroyed, and the next block considera- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 581 

bly damaged. In the building of E. B. Low was the 
post-office, then kept by William Douglass, and in that 
of C. H. Eddy was the town clerk's office. One historic 
deposit consumed with Eddy's store was a quantity of 
type and printing material, the mortal remains of the 
old Turner newspaper, consigned to the cellar a gene- 
ration before. The excitement and confusion were 
great in a village with no fire department and no ade- 
quate water supply, but men fought the flames bravely 
inch by inch, climbing the shingled roofs and covering 
them with wet earth and sods, carrying water in pails 
from wells and cisterns, and even up the hill from the 
lake. The three bells were rung until the country 
people for miles around were roused, and came in to 
help. It happened that there was at the time a Teach- 
ers' Institute held in tov»^n, and the hotel was filled to 
its utmost capacity. The old Halstead house, opposite 
the Bciptist church, was saved by the thick, damp, foli- 
age of the large elms and maples which had shaded it 
for so many years, but these were so badly scorched 
that they have never quite recovered their beauty, and 
some of them have died. The total cost of the fire was 
estimated at $75,000. The burned area was immedi- 
ately built over by the owners, in a manner greatly to 
the advantage of the village, with the exception of the 
hotel site, which lay untouched for eleven years. 

Thus the southern part of the village was left with 
no place of entertainment for strangers, a state of things 
which had not existed since John Halstead built the 
first frame house in the village, on the south corner at 



582 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT. 



the top of the lake hill, in 1800, and there offered ea- 
tertainment to man and beast. Here came the earliest 
travelers, landing from the ferry, or awaiting its uncer- 
tain arrival. But in course of time conditions changed, 
and from about 1825 the house was a private dwelhng, 
occupied by the Halstead and Sawyer families until 
1868. Then it was sold to the Lake Champlain Ore 
and Iron Company, and this company owned it at the 
time of the fire. A large addition was then bailt to the 
house, and it was transformed into a hotel, under the 
name of the Marvin House. Gen. Marvin of Troy, one 
of the iron magnates of the da}^ was the principal owner. 
For ten years the management changed frequently, Mr. 
Montford Weed keeping it the greater part of the time, 
and in 1887 the property was purchased by the present 
proprietors, and the house became the Westport Inn. 
It has been improved and built upon until the original 
structure is now entirely gone. The Inn is a summer 
hotel, keeping open onlj from June to October, and has 
become one of the popular resorts of the Adirondacks. 
It is in its season the principal hotel of the place, ac- 
commodating one hundred and fifty guests. The first 
manager was Mrs. Henry C. Lyon, followed after a few 
years by Mrs. O. C. Daniels. In 1900 the management 
was assumed by Mr. Harry P. Smith, who has been 
connected with the Inn since its first opening. The 
Inn property now comprises all the old Halstead prop- 
erty along the lake shore, with two places across the 
road, the Gables and Over the Way, besides the Wil- 
liam J. Cutting place, on which are the golf links 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 583 

stretching back toward the mountains, and the club 
house on the corner, made out of J. N. Barton's carriage 
shop. 

The water works came as a direct consequence of the 
opening of the Inn, the company being chartered in 
1891. The w^ater, the best in the world, is brought 
from the Mountain Spring in the hills back of the vil- 
lage, and the pipes extend from A. P. Holt's on the 
south to Stony Sides oq the north, from Jacksonville on 
the east to the railway station on the west. All the 
central part of the village is sewered. 

Tlie Libi'ary. 

In the winter of 1884-5 was the first movement to- 
ward a town Library. The idea originated with Miss 
D. May Howard, then teaching south of the village, 
and was eagerly approved by the faculty of the High 
School, at that time consisting of three teachers, Mr. 
Chas. F. Chisholm, Miss Kate Kogers and Miss Lina 
H. Barton. Other young people of the town who gave 
help at the beginning were Miss Lou Prescott, Miss 
Ada G. Douglass, Miss Minnie Newell, Charles 
Holt, George Richards, Harry Douglass, Frank Royce, 
and Ben Douglass. Mrs. Francis L. Lee gave substan- 
tial help when applied to, and Dr. F. T. Delano, then 
just settled in town, gave valuable aid. 

The young people held entertainments in the Armory, 
which had been fitted up with a rude stage and ruder 
seats some years before for the use of the Forrest Club, 



584 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

and in a few months fifty dollars was raised and in- 
vested in books. Mr. Amos Prescott offered the use of 
a wing of his house as a library, and for three years 
his daughter acted as Librarian, with some help from 
other young ladies. Membership tickets were sold, en- 
tertainments and sociables were held at the houses of 
people kindly disposed and the first catalog, printed 
June, 1886, showed 238 volumes. Now, after eighteen 
years, we have over two thousand volumes. 

In 1887 Miss Alice Lee took an active part in the 
fortunes of the growing Library. By personal effort 
she succeeded in obtaining subscriptions in town of 
$1,100 in cash and labor, and donations from friends 
outside to the amount of $1,400. In October of 1887 
the Westport Library Association was incorporated by 
the state, the charter members of the Board of Trustees 
being Miss Alice Lee, Peter P. Bacon, Frank H. Eddy, 
Frank T. Delano, John Hoffnagle and Luther B. New- 
ell. Upon Mr. Hoffnagle's moving to Bouses Point, 
David A. Clark was elected in his place, and after the 
death of Mr. Newell Mr. George C. Spencer and Mr. 
Frank B. Boyce were elected trustees. After the re- 
moval from town of Dr. DeLano and Mr. Spencer, and 
the deaths of Mr. Bacon and Mr. Eddy, three more 
were elected, Mr. Frank E. Smith, Mr. Harry P. Smith 
and Mr. George B. Bichards. The President of the 
Association is Miss Lee. Secretary, Mr. L. B. Newell, 
succeeded by Mr. Frank B. Boyce. Treasurer, Mr. F. 
H. Eddy, succeeded by Mrs. F. H. Eddy. For a num- 
ber of years the work of Librarian was done gratui- 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 585 

tously by ladies living in town, the tiist of whom was 
Miss Louise Prescott. After the new building was oc- 
cupied help was given by Miss Ada G. Douglass, Mrs. 
r. T. DeLano, Mrs. F. H. Eddy, Mrs. J. L. Roberts, 
Mrs. F. E. Smith, Mrs. F. B. Royce and Miss Jennie 
Daniell. Since 1892 paid Librarians have been eoj- 
ployed, — Miss Marian Ferris, Miss Marie Bacon, after- 
ward Mrs. Harry P. Smith, Miss Osite Bacon, after- 
ward Mrs. John H. Low, and Miss Molly Eddy. 

The vacant lot in the centre of the village, still cov- 
ered with the ruins of the old "Persons Hotel," was 
purchased as the site for the new Library building, and 
the grounds were leveled and cleared by contributed 
labor. The Library building, 26x52 feet in size, was 
designed by Messrs. Andrews k Jaques of Boston, and 
constructed by Mr. David A. Clark. On Thursday 
evening, July 2o, 1888, the hall was filled with the au- 
dience which had gathered to witness the opening cere- 
monies. Upon the platform sat the trustees and li- 
brarian, with the Rev. H. L, Grant of the M. E. Church, 
Rev. Mr. Benedict of the Baptist, and Rev. F. X. 
LaChance, of the Roman Catholic Church, and also 
Mr. Amos Prescott, who had given the Library a home 
for three years. Dr. F. T. DeLano presided, an ac- 
count of the work was given by Mr. L. B. Newell, and 
the principal address was made by the Hon. Richard 
L. Hand of Elizabethtown, followed by remarks from 
iSenator R. C. Kellogg. 

The Library has been used since its opening as a 
town hall, in which elections and town meetings are 



5S6 HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 

lield. It is also the most available place for public en- 
tertaiuments. It is supported entirely by the reut re- 
ceived iu this wa}', by tickets sold to non-resideuts and 
by contributions from friends, as the town has never 
been taxed for its maintenance. 



W^estport FarlrL^^. 

Important in the history of the old patent of Bessboro 
was the purchase, iu 1894 of nine farms along the lake 
shore, by Mr. James McKinley Graefi. These farms, 
with a mountain lot on Harper mountain, comprise 
eighteen hundred acres, and all are operated together 
under the name of tlie Westport Farms. No finer farm- 
ing land can be found in all the world, and here much 
of the modern improved farming machinery has been 
first seen in tow'n. Tiie Creamery, the manufacture of 
maple sugar in its season, and all the operations of a 
large estate give employment to large numbers of work- 
njeu and their fan)ilies. The residence has been built 
overlooking the site of the old pre-Revolutionary settle- 
ment of Kaymoud's Mills, and the island of Father 
Jogues. The beautiful bay has now a tragic interest 
from the drowning of Mr. Graeti's eldest son, a boy 
of twelve, in June of 1903. It was in 1900 that Mr. 
Graetf received his tirst election to the Assembly, and 
he is now holding his fourth term as member from 
Essex County. 



HISTORY OF WE ST PORT 587 

ll'OII . 

To this last quarter ceutnry belongs the record of the 
last iron manufacture in the town, and it would 
seem that this is the proper place for a brief summary 
of the whole history of that industry. It might be said 
to begin with Philip Skene, about 1765, shipping ore 
from the Crown Point bed, now the Cheever, to Skenes- 
boro, followed by the operations of the Plattsburgh pro- 
prietors at the same place after the Revolution. But 
for the soil of the present Westport the history of iron 
begins in the earliest decade of the nijieteenth century, 
with the work of Jonas Morgan at two points on the 
Black river. For^lifty years, the time being divided into 
two periods by the freshet of 1830 which swept away 
most of the work of the earliest settlers, the little forges 
on the Black carried on an intermittent but not an in- 
considerable industry. Here belong the names of 
Braiuard and Mitchell, Southwell, Lobdell,Myrick and 
Hatch, ending with Meigs, who vanished in 1855. Iron 
was not made upon the Boquet so early as upon the 
Black, but the town records mention Wadhams and 
Bramah's forge at the Falls in 1822, and in 1829 the only 
iron works in town were those of Barnabas Myrick at 
the same place. During this half century of small local 
ir<m making, bar iron was recognized as a standard of 
exchange, equally with grain and cattle. 

The second period begins with the purchase of the 
Oheever ore bed by Boston capitalists in 1838, leading 
to the development of the Moriah mines, and the in- 



588 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 



creased raaDiifacture of their ore in Elizabetlitown aud 
West port. In 1845 the plank road was laid from the 
Yalley to the Bay, chiefly for the convenience of the 
men who were drawing ircm to the wharves. In the 
same 3'ear Merriam's Forge was opened upon the Bo- 
quet, to see a prosperous existence of about twenty-five 
years, making in 18fi6 four hundred and fifty tons of 
iron, and using eighty thousand bushels of charcoal. 
All the ore was drawn over the mountains from Mine- 
ville, mucli of it in the winter, the farmers of the neigh- 
borhood going with a load of ha\' or grain, and return- 
ing with a load of ore for Merriam's Forge. In 1848 
the Sisco Furnace was built upon the lake shore, by 
Boston capital, and represents the height of our iroa 
production. Six to nine tons of iron were made per 
day, l)ut all was over with Jackson's failure in 1857. 
To this period belong the first attempts to raise ore in 
Westport. The Campbell or Nichols Pond bed (after- 
ward the Norway) was opened between 1845 and 1850, 
ai]d the ore used in the Valley Forge, in Elizabethtow!i. 
About 1850 the Jackson or Ledge Hill bed was opened 
and the ore used in the Sisco Furnace. 'J'he Merriam 
bed was not opened until 1867. 

After the war came the third period, and the briefest 
of all. The furnace at Seventy-five was built in 1864, 
standing by a geographical accident on Westport land, 
bat belonging in fact to the system (^f Moriah iron works. 
In 1868 the Lake Cham plain Ore and Iron Company, 
of which firm the most famous name is that of Jay 
Cook, began operations, building the Norway Furnace 



HISTORY OF fTESTPORT 589 

in 1869, with the separator and tram road at Nichols 
Pond, and giving its name to the Norway bed. At 
nearly the same time the Split Rock bed was opened, 
faintly enhaloed with the name of Boss Tweed, but not 
until the late seventies were separator, wharf and dwel- 
ling houses built. 

Our fourth period, and the last, that of Payne at 
Wadhams Mills, extends from 1873 to 1884. Daniel 
French Payne had bought all the old Wadhams prop- 
erty, lands and mills, in 1865, built a new saw mill in 1867, 
and enlarged the grist mill in 1868. In 187§ he began 
the construction of a two-fired forge, finished it in 1875, 
added another fire in 1879, and still another in 1880. 
With this plant his maximum production of iron was 
one thousand tons a year. The ore was brought froai 
the Moriah mines and from Ferrona and Chateaugay 
on the railroad. The last iron was made in 1884, the 
difficulty of obtaining charcoal rendering its further 
production unprofitable. 

This undoubtedly ends the chapter of iron making in 
Westport. The water-power at Wadhams has since been 
used only for milling purposes, but now, in 1904, it is 
about to be utilized for an extensive electric plant, capa- 
ble of furnishing light and power for many miles of the 
surrounding country. So that instead of loads of ore 
dragged slowly over the mountains to be made into iron 
at the Falls of the Boquet, the electricity generated at 
the Falls will be flashed to Mineville to furnish the 
power for working the mines there. 



590 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

RoiTLaii Catholic Clnirch 

It was intended to give complete sketches^ of each 
of the three cliurclies iu town, but the essential 
details of the histories of the three Protestant denomin- 
ations may easily be gathered from the data given in 
the chronoloj^ical account, and any one interested will 
gladly undertake the trouble of tracing their growth 
and development. They were organized early among 
an emigrant people of New England origin, as one of 
the tirst necessities of their daily lives, the Baptist 
church in 1807, the M. E. church in 1816, and the 
Congregational soujewhat later. The fourth church 
has been un mentioned until an outline of its history is 
now given. 

The first white man who ever looked upon the shores 
of Westport was a Roman Catholic, — Samuel de Cham- 
plain, in 1609. The first white man whose foot ever 
pressed the soil of Westport was a Roman Catholic, — 
Pere Isaac Jogues, a Jesuit priest. In 1642 he, with 
two companions, Couure and Goupil, also priests, were 
captured by the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence and 
carried. up Lake Champlain. Landing upon the island 
near the southern shore of tlie laud which is now 
called Westport, the tliree priests were compelled to run 
the gauntlet, and were otherwise tortured. Pere 
Jogues was afterward killed by the Indians iu the Mo- 
hawk country. 

All through the one hundred and fifty years of French 
sovereignty over Lake Champlain and its borders, the 



, HISTORY OF WESTPORT 591 

Pope of Rome claimed spiritual sway over all souls 
within it. When the fort at Crown Point was built in 
1731 a little church sheltered an altar where mass was 
said, at times, as long as the lih"es of France floated 
from the flag staff upon the ramparts. The French 
village near the fort saw many a priest stopping for 
a night on his journeys up and down the lake, some- 
times with a war party of painted savages on their way 
to burn villages on the English frontier. To this pe- 
riod, we believe, belongs the little ebony image of the 
Virgin and Child, discovered among the pebbles of 
North Shore. Some Canadian voyager, some Indian 
convert, or some missionary priest traveling in the bark 
canoe of an Iroquois warrior, may have dropped it as 
he stepped ashore for a night's encampment. 

When the country was given over to England, in 1763, 
the religion of France retained no foothold upon it. 
Not until 1840 was mass first said in Port Henrv, and 
not for several years after that in Westport. The Ro- 
man Catholics in the place have been, almost without 
exception, immigrants from Canada, in numbers too few 
to maintain a separate parish until within twenty years. 
The conversion to Roman Catholicism of Edgar Wad- 
hams seems to have little connection with his boyhood 
home, as he was received by the Sulpicians of St. Mary's 
Seminary at Baltimoie in 1845, four years afterward 
ordained a priest of St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral at Albany, 
and there remained until he became first Bishop of the 
new see of Ogdeusburgh in 1872. Therefore it cannot 
be said that he influenced the growth of the church in 



592 



HISTORY OF WFSTPORT 



this vicinity in any degree until bis entrance upon his 
bisliopric. 

In 1857 hmd was purchased for a church and ceme- 
tery, and the frame of the church was raised and en- 
closed, although the building remained uncompleted 
for more than twenty years. Active in these begin- 
nings, as always through the subsequent histor}^ of the 
church, was Mr. Peter P. Bacon, who was trustee of 
the church until his death. Other trustees have been 
Michael Flinn, John Close and John Ferrell. Upon 
the appointment of Bishop Wadhams to his see, he sent 
Father Shields to this mission, and afterward Father 
O'Rourke, in charge at Port Henry, gave time and at- 
tention to the completion of the church in 1879. In 
1882 the parish of Westport was formed, including 
Elizabethtown, Essex and Keene, and it was attended 
by the Bev. Joseph Eeclington, and then by the 
Eev. John Sullivan, who died in the winter of 1884. 
The next summer the Rev. Michael Halahan was re- 
moved from his position as assistant at the cathedral and 
placed in charge of the parish. Through his exertions 
the church and grounds were greatly improved, and a 
parochial residence erected, since which time the home 
of the parish priest has been m this place. The com- 
pleted church was dedicated by Bishop Wadhams, un- 
der the protection of St. Philip of Neri, with a large 
number of visiting priests in attendance. The new bell 
was baptized with the name of Pere Isaac Jogues, and 
its musical s(3und floated forth over the little island 
where the gentle priest had suti'ered, two hundred and 



HISTORY OF WESrPORT 59:i 

forty years before. The cruel savages are gone. Their 
animal-like worship of the forces of nature has com- 
manded no followers since they were swept away. But 
the cross of Christ, upon which Isaac Jogues fixed every 
thought of his anguished soul as his gaze swept the 
horizon of this wilderness, still shines as a symbol over 
the whole land. 

Father Halahan was followed by the Rev. Francis 
Xavier LaChance, who still ministers to the people. 
The church property on Pleasant street adds greatly to 
the attractiveness of the village, as church, parish house 
and cemetery are kept in fine order, and much care and 
labor are expended on the grounds, where the shrub- 
bery and flower beds are more beautiful every summer. 



Miarclers. 

Only three were ever committed on our soil. In the 
summer of 1882 a man by the name of DeBosnys, 
a Portuguese by birth, came to Essex, and soon married 
a widow by the name of Betsy Wells. The first of Au- 
gust the}^ drove to Port Henry, and returned by way of 
the lake road to Essex. In one of the loneliest spots 
of that lonely road over the the Split Eock range, they 
left the buggy and went into the wood, where DeBos- 
nys shot and stabbed the woman, covered her body 
with bushes, returned 'to the buggy and drove on to 
Essex alone. There he went into the post office, and 
while giving directions in regard to letters which might 
come for him there in future, an ofiicer entered and ar- 



594 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 



rested hioi, onlj^ five hours after the murder had been 
done. His detection was really due to the loneliness 
of the spot which he had chosen, and which he had 
reckoned upon as his greatest protection. Travelers 
were not so frequent upon that road as to pass unno- 
ticed, and DeBosnys and his wife were seen to pass the 
old Gen. Wright place, where Allen Talbot then lived. 
Soon afterward Mr. Talbot was out in the fields and 
saw a man skulking in the woods. Meeting a neighbor, 
William Blinn, who lived in the next house toward 
Essex, he learned that DeBosnys had been seen passing 
Blinn's house alone. As DeBosnys was a foreigner 
and a suspicious character, search was immediately be- 
gun for the missing woman, and every movement of the 
murderer and his victim was easih* traced. DeBosnys 
was tried the next March, instantly convicted, and hung 
at Elizabethtown April 27, 1883, the second man ever 
hung in the county. 

On the same lonely mountain road, but two miles 
nearer the village, occurred the second murder, in Feb- 
ruary of 1890. Two old people, Mr. and Mrs. Eansom 
Floyd, living alone upon their farm, had sold a rocky 
pasture high up on the hills ot the Split Kock range, 
and the check sent in payment lay in the house. One 
evening a masked man entered and shot them both. It 
was thought that he meant only .to frighten them out of 
the money, but that she, a woman of extraordinary 
strength and spirit, though frail in appearance, tore the 
mask from his face and recognized him, and then in 
self defence, to escape detection, he killed them both. 



HISTORY OF WE ST FORT 595 

But the check had never beeu endorsed, and the mur- 
derer left it behind him, smeared with bloody hands. A 
light snow fell to cover his tracks, and to this day it is 
not know whon did the deed. 

In August of the same year a brutal wretch, Charles 
AVright by name, killed an old woman who lived alone 
on another mountain road, the one that leads from 
Stevenson's to Miueville. Her name was Bedeha Tay- 
lor. The murderer was at once apprehended, and al- 
though there was from the first no doubt whatever of 
his guilt, it took the people of the state of New York 
nearly three years to send him to imprisonment for life 
in Dannemora yjrison. Many people believe that this 
'man Wright also killed Mr. and Mrs. Floyd, as he was 
at one time employed upon the farm, and knew the 
liouse well. The sale of the land and the receipt of 
the check had beeu common talk for days in the neigh- 
borhood and in the village, and it was supposed that 
the check had been cashed. 



B ibliograpliy . 

The books of Westport are not many. Aside from the 
list of books concerning the Cham plain valle}^ every 
one of which has of course a connection more or less 
intimate with the history of this township, no book has 
ever been written about Westport until the pres- 
ent volume. The actual literary production seems to 
begin with the first newspaper, the Essex County Times 
and Westport Herald, published from 1841 to 1844 by 



596 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

Anson H. Allen, and continued from 1844 a few years 
longer by David Turner, under the name of the Essex 
County Times. This is our one and only newspaper, 
with the exception of a sheet called the Yankee Nation, 
of which one issue was printed in the summer of 1898, 
b}^ a man from Vergennes who did not seem to have 
serious intentions. 

Of contributions to periodicals outside the town, the 
first that I know are the letters written to the New 
York Evening Post, descriptive of a winter in Florida, 
by Lieut. Piatt K Halstead, in 1845. 

The same year Sewall Sylvester Catting became editor 
of the Neiv York Recorder, a religious paper which he con- 
ducted for ten years, with the exception of three years 
in which he was editor of Quarterly Christian Review. 
In 1858 he published" Historical Vindications of the 
Baptists." His hymns and poems, which were nu- 
merous and widely read, have never been collected in a 
volume. One of the most important was t^e alumni 
poem, "Lake Champlain," read before the alumni 
of the University of Vermont at the Commencement of 
1877. Of his many contributions to local history, per- 
haps the best known is "The Genesis of the Buck- 
board." 

Judge Asa Aikens published one of his law-books, 
*'Forms," before coming to Westport, and another, 
"Tables," in 1846, while living here. 

We have a right to claim in our list Dr. George T. 
Stevens' "Three years in the Sixth Corps," published 
m 1866, in Albany, by S. R. Gray, partly from the fact 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 597 

of Dr. Stevens' residence at Waclhams from 1857 to '61, 
and partly because this book describes particularly the 
war experiences of many Westport men belonging to 
the 77th N. Y. V. His later scientific works can hardly 
be claimed in this list. 

A little volume of letters of travel, written by Mrs. 
Francis L Lee during a western trip taken in 1886, was 
dedicated to her grandchildren, and published in Bos- 
ton in 1887. It is '^Glimpses of Mexico and California, 
by S. M. Lee." 

Mr. F. Y. Lester, at one time Principal of our High 
School, published in 1899 a school book called "Nine 
Ninety-nine Problems." 

Heraldry. 

The armorial bearings of nations and individuals con- 
nected with our history have made a pleasant study. 
The Iroquois who owned the land before the white man 
came were arnaigers in the strictest sense, bearing to- 
temic insignia by which the tribes were distinguished. 
The totems of t|ie Five Nations were the bear, the deer, 
the wolf, the tortoise and the beaver, all animals famil- 
iar to our forests, which might weH be quartered upon 
a shield as the arms of the Iroquois Confederacy. 

The first white man who ever saw the shores of West- 
port, Samuel de Champlain, undoubtedly bore arms, as 
he came of noble family, bat the symbols upon his 
shield we do not know, since his line is extinct, and no 
records have yet been found in which the family arms 



393 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

are given. The city of Quebec, founded by Champlain, 
and therefore anxious to do hina honor, has spent much 
time and money in the search, but so far without result. 

Should we represent our history by a series of shields, 
symbolizing the changes in events from 1609 onward, 
we should place directly after the totems 
of the Iroquois the royal insignia of France, the three 
golden lilies on an azure field which were blazoned on 
t?he first flag which ever floated over our soil. After- 
ward came the banner of England, planted upon the 
walls of Crown Point fort, gorgeous in its many col- 
ored quarterings. This was the flag to which Ray- 
mond and his settlers took off their hats when they 
went to the fort, and the one which flew from the masts 
of Carleton's ships when he fought with Benedict Ar- 
nold in Northwest Ba}^ Arnold's ships bore the flag 
of thirteen red and white stripes, with the three crosses 
of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick combined in 
the familiar union of the British ensign. Now our 
school children are taught to salute "the flag of Wash- 
ington," which is the same as Arnold's except for the 
starry union which was afterward adopted. 

The first owner of land in AVestport, William Gilli- 
land, who surveyed the boundaries of Bessboro in 1764, 
bore arms, — "azure, a lion rampant argent," that is, a 
silver lion standing upright on a shield of blue. The 
crest is a right hand with a mailed wrist, clenching the 
handle of a dagger, the helmet above the shield is that 
of an esquire, and the motto is "Dieu et mon pais" 



HISTORY OF WEST PORT 599 

("God and my peace" in old French). These arms are 
still used on the bookplate of the Gilliland family. 

Next we may hang the arms of the Irish Bessboro, 
an earldom of the Ponsonbv family in the south of Kil- 
kenny, which Gilliland doubtless had in mind when he 
named this patent, although we know of no real con- 
nection between him and the Ponsonby estate. The 
shield is red, crossed by a silver chevron, with three 
silver combs, two above and one below the chevron. 
The comb is a very uncommon charge in heraldry, but it 
is explained that an ancestor of the Ponsonby family 
came into England with William the Conqueror and was 
appointed barber to the king, assuming three combs 
upon his shield. The crest is a snake twining about a 
cluster of three arrows whose points are downward, — a 
device startlingly prophetic of the New World Bess- 
boro, if the serpent be a rattlesnake and the arrows the 
stone headed shafts of the Iroquois. The motto is Pro 
rege, lege, grege. 

The second owner of our soil. Sir Philip Skene, came 
of a Scottish clan, with a tartan of its own, and arms 
which were assumed in the time of King Malcolm III. 
A skene, readers of Scotch tales will remember, is a 
short hunting dagger, double edged, which the High- 
lander sometimes carried in his stocking. The story is 
that King Malcolm was attacked in the royal forest by 
a wolf, and the wolf was killed by one of the courtiers 
whom the king rewarded by giving him arms of his own 
which are thus described : 

"The arms of Skene of that ilk are gules, three skenes 



600 HISTORY OF WESTFORT 

paleways in fess argeutj liilted and pommelled or, on 
the point of each a wolf's head couped of the third. 
Supporters, dexter, a highlandman in his proper garb 
holding a skene in his right hand in a guarding pos- 
ture ; sinister, another highlandman in a servile habit, 
his target on the left arm and the dorlach by the right 
side, all proper. Crest, a dexter hand proper holding a 
dagger argent, hilted and pommelled or, surmounted of 
a wolfs head. Motto, Virtutis regia merces." 

But that Sir Philip who sailed on Lake Champlain 
was not a Skene of Skene, but belonged to that branch 
of the family called Skene of Halyards, a younger 
branch whose cadency is indicated by a crescent as a 
difference, the shield being otherwise the same as the 
arms of Skene of that ilk. Therefore if the village of 
Westport should desire to make use of the arms of the 
first owner of the soil as armorial bearings for the com- 
munity, they would be a red shield, bearing three silver 
daggers with golden handles, the point of each thrust 
into a wolf's head. 

01 the eight men who owned Skene's patent after the 
Revolution, the twoPlatts,Zephaniah and Nathaniel, came 
of a family which bore arms, and a brilliant coat it was, 
which would make a fine show on the seal of the city 
of Plattsburgh. It was "party per pale, or and gules ; 
a lion passant argent, armed azure. Crest, a chaplet." 
That is, the shield is half gold and half red, divided in 
the middle lengthwise, and upon this glowing back- 
ground walks a silver lion with toes and tail tuft of blue. 

The wife of Piatt Rogers was a Wiltse. and the "arms 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 601 

de Wiltz" are "or, a chief gules," that is,a golden shield, 
with the upper third red. Crest, a cap of maintenance,a 
state orDament often carried before a prince or the 
major of a city on occasions of ceremony. The cap is 
of red with a rim of gold, and above it are two golden 
wings "au vol." Whether that first Wiltse who came 
to Manhattan in 1656 had good right and title to this 
coat of arms it is hard to tell, but at least many an 
American claims arms and ancestry with no more de- 
cisive proof. 

There is no more beautiful coat than that of Wad- 
hams of Merrifield, the colors being red and silver. 
The shield is "gules, a chevron between three roses, ar- 
gent. Crest, a stag's head couped, with a rose between 
the horns." That is, on a red shield a silver chevron 
between three silver roses, two above and one below. 
Crest, a pair of antlers with part of the skull attached, 
couching them ; the whole of gold, except the rose, 
which is silver. This shield is found upon the seal of 
the bishopric of Ogdensburgh, but not the crest, since 
a bishop bears no crest. 

One department of heraldry belongs almost entirely 
to the new world, — that of inventing coats of arms for 
new commonwealths. Why should not dear old West- 
port have at least tliis one article of luxury, which 
ought not to cost more than a little inventive power, 
together with a sympathetic knowledge of her history? 
I would here humbly ofifer an escutcheon which has 
shaped itself in my imagination as symbolic of the 
town. Let us take the Gilliland tinctures, blue and 



602 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

silver, the same as those of the lake and the anclouded 
sky. Let the shield be of silver, to symbolize the 
gleaming surface of the bay, aud let us have a chief of 
azure, like the sky which bends above it. Ou this azure 
cliief put three golden fleurs-de-lys, forChamplain, and 
for the hundred and fifty years of the sovereignty of 
France. For motto we will take Gilliland's own, '*God 
and my peace," since nothing could be better for an un- 
ambitious little town of quiet history. I am more in 
doubt about the crest than anything else. Shall it be 
Skene's silver dagger with the wolf's head upon it, or 
the tomahawk of one of Rogers' Kangers sunk into the 
head of a lynx ? Or shall we have the graceful two- 
masted periagua of the Flattsburgh proprietors under 
full sail, or the first Vermont, with its hmg trail of 
smoke? But these are all too elaborate, since good 
heraldry is not pictorial, but symbolic. The stag's 
antlers would be better, such as have tossed among our 
forest trees for untold centuries. If it is left to me, 
I shall draw the arms of Westport argent, on a chief 
azure three fleurs-de-lys or. Crest, a stag's head couped, 
argent. When this is hung upon the wall we will sur- 
round it with a mantling of rich green, for the foliage 
of our summer landscape, and the motto shall be ''Dieu 
et mon jKiis.'' For supporters we might have a woods- 
man with his axe and one of Rogers' Rangers in full 
buckskin, but 1 incline to one of our black bears on the 
dexter side, with an immense muskalonge, as big as the 
one Champlain thought he saw, which was certainly of 
a size to balance that of a bear, on the sinister side. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 603 

This may also symbolize the fish stories of the summer 
boarder, aud shall be the odIv hiot of modern condi- 
tions. I confess that I contemplate this imaginary 
shield with some complacency. Perhaps, when the 
American College of Heralds shall be finally constitu- 
ted, 1 shall be given some humble oflice, — I think I 
should like to be Portcullis, —and then I promise you 
that it shall not be forjjrotieu. 



Additional Facts. 

The leisurely manner in which this book has gone 
through the press has given ample time for the discovery 
of many additional facts. In a little book in the State 
Library, "Benedict Arnold's Pvegimental Memorandum 
Book, written while at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, 
1775, "which was printed in thePennsylvinia Magazine of 
History and Biography in 1884, are several references 
toEaymond's Mills. On June 1st Arnold writes, ''Sent 
a boat to Raymond's Saw Mills for Boards to repair 
the Barracks, &c., at Crown Point. Then June 3rd, "8 
Carpenters employed in repairing the Bairacks. Re- 
ceived two thousand feet boards from Raymond's mill," 
a part of which he sent to Ti. The same day "Sent 
Capt. M'Kenzie in his Battoe to Raymond's mill for 
boards." This was probably William McKenzie, the 
first settler upon the site of Port Henry, aud doubtless 
living there at this time, since he was the owner of a 
batteau which could be pressed into the service. June 



604: HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

tLth, "Seut a boat to Haymoud's for Ash for Oars and 
Troughs for Guns," and the 12th and 13th a boat 
]:>ronght boards froQi the same phice. On the 13th he 
writes, "Seut a boat with Skeu's Negroes to dig ore." 
These were the twelve slaves taken at Skenesboro a 
few weeks before, who had been left there by Sir Phihp 
Skene for the service and protection of his family. 
Later in the diary Arnold notes the arrival of "3 Miss 
Skeins" at Crown Point, probably to be placed on 
board one of the ships to be taken southward. Arnold 
had ever a winning way with women, and we may im- 
agine him graceful, deferential, sympathetic, toward the 
three captive ladies of high degree ; while he made 
good use of their slaves in fitting out his fleet. He sent 
the slaves to Skene's ore bed to dig ore, and then had 
it taken to Skenesboro and forged into bolts and links 
and whatever he needed for his ships. June 16th he 
"sent to Ra3'mond's Mill for Timber and provisions for 
Skine's Negroes." If he had had to write Sir Philip's 
name again perhaps he would have invented still an- 
other way to spell it, but the diary ends June 24th, 
leaving us with so much more food for the imagination 
in dwelling upon the life in our first settlement. 

In reminiscences of early settlers on the Vermont 
shore, gathered betimes into the immortal "Hemenway," 
we find that one Thomas Hinckley lived at Raymond's 
Mills in the fall of 1778, and was taken captive, with 
almost every other man on both sides of the lake, and 
put on board one of the British ships to be carried to 
Canada. The policy of the British at this time was to 



HISTORY OF WESTFORT 605 

remove the fighting men and leave the women and 
children behind to return to the older settlements. 
These were collected in batteaux, and two of the pris- 
oners, Elijah Grandey ofPantonand Thomas Hinckley, 
were released for the express purpose of taking these 
batteaux loaded with women, children and a few hastily 
snatched household goods, to Skenesboro. Probably 
the commanding officer intended setting sail at once, 
and could not wait for the return of two of his own men 
from this errand. 

It was at this time that Peter Ferris, who had 
brought his family from Dutchess county in 1766 and 
settled opposite Eaymond's Mills, was taken to Canada 
and confined in Quebec until June of 1782. His house 
was burned by an old Tory neighbor, and so we can 
never see it, v/ith the marks of the cannon balls that 
struck it as Carleton fired volley after volley into the 
retreating ships of Arnold, in October of 177i). 

But there was one man living at Raymond's Mill at 
this period who retained the confidence of the British 
to such a degree that he was left at liberty while his 
neighbors and friends were being carried into cap- 
tivity. His name was Webster, and in this calaaii- 
tous November of 1778 he sheltered Lt. Benjamin Ev- 
erest, a Green Mountain Boy of Panton, who escaped 
from a British ship as it lay at Ti. and made his way 
northward through the woods to the Raymond settle- 
ment. Everest spent one night in the forest, and came 
at sunrise to Put's creek. Keeping well back on tiie 
hills, but always in sight of the lake, he passed the fort 



606 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

at Crown Point at a prudent distance, and about mid- 
day came to Raymond's Mills. As he drew near the 
settlement, he heard the strokes of an axe ringing clear 
in the sharp November air in the woods back of the 
clearing. Skulking behind trees, he came near enough 
to the axeman to recognize Webster, and made himself 
known. Webster started to take him to his cabin, but 
as they came out of the woods into the clearing they 
saw the whole British fleet, laden as it was with cap- 
tured Yankees, come dropping down the lake with a 
light breeze. The ships came to anchor for the night 
in mid-channel, directly opposite the settlement, and 
Everest crept back into the woods once more, hungry 
and shivering, while Webster went into the house and 
carried food to the fugitive. Then they agreed upon a 
plan and a signal. Webster returned to his house and 
built a roaring fire in the rude stone fireplace with 
sticks from the woodpile which lay at every frontiers- 
man's door. After nightfall, when all was quiet on 
board the fleet, with no sign of search parties sent out 
for escaped prisoners, Webster opened his door, letting 
out the light from his fireplace upon the dark woods, 
and split a few sticks of wood from his woodpile. As 
the strokes of his axe sounded on the still, frosty air, 
heard as plainly by the sentries on board the fleet as 
by Everest hiding in the woods, he whistled a tune 
which had been agreed upon as a signal that all was 
well. The sentries heard only a backwoodsman split- 
ting wood at his door to keep his fire going in the chill 
autumn night, but Everest heard and sped awaj' in the 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 607 

darkness to the place on the shore where he kneAv Web- 
ster's canoe was lying, pushed it off and paddled si- 
lently away. He crossed the lake without attracting 
attention from either fleet or fort, landed on the shore 
and made his way to Castleton. 

This story brings out the fact that the Kaymond set- 
tlement was by no means deserted until af ^er 1778. The 
settlers probably fled to the south after Arnold's defeat 
by Carleton, returning to their farms the next spring, 
or perhaps not until after the surrender of Burgo\me in 
1777. We know that on the Vermont shore the settlers 
who were driven from their homes during the war al- 
most invariably returned to them again, sometimes in 
the face of positive danger. 

In a list of early boatmen on the lake w^e find the 
names of Elijah Newell and Levi Hinckley, about 1790, 
who probably sailed boats belonging to the merchant 
fleet of "Admiral" Gideon King of Burlington. K 
search for the names and histories of vessels built at 
the shipyard of Alexander Young at Young's bay has 
been rewarded by one name only, that of the Emperor, 
a sailing boat of fifty tons, "built for H. and A. Ferris, 
at Barber's Point, by Young," in 1810. 

As for the early supervisors who deliberated upon 
our town affairs, the first was Williani McKenzie, 
elected in 179B for the town of Crown Point, the same 
'"Capt. M'Kenzie," I think, who carried boards for Ar- 
nold in his batteau in June of 1775. He lived near the 
site of Port Henry, and went to Plattsburgh to meet 
the four other supervisors of Clinton county. The next 



60S HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

supervisor of Crown Point was John Kirbj, who lived 
at Kirby's Point in Ticonderoga. He is said to have 
been a Tory during the revohitiou, and Cook says that 
his family were sent to Canada in batteaux by Carletou 
at the beginning of the war, returning in 1782. Kirby 
first knew this region through his service in the old 
French war. 

Then when the town of Elizabethtown was formed in 
1798, its first supervisor was Ebenezer Newell, who 
lived at Northwest Bay, I have erroneously stated on 
page 169 that this first supervisor was Ebenezer Arnold, 
a name since proven to belong onh' to a mythical per- 
sonage conjured up by the mistake of a printer who 
misunderstood some one's poor penmanship and printed 
Arnold for Neicell in the Essex County History of 1885, 
whence my information was obtained. 



ConcKision. 

Closing my book, I am reminded of something in a 
novel published perhaps twenty years ago, — "Jupiter 
Lights," by Constance Fenimore Woolson. Cicely had 
been ill, and was watched over by a nurse whom 
she exceedingly disliked, a slow, commonplace woman 
who never read but one book, and that a history of her 
native town. ''Cicely gazed at her for some time; then 
she jumped from the couch with a quick bound. "It's 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 009 

impossible to lie here another instant and see that 
history of Windham, Connecticut! The next thing you'll 
be proposing to read it aloud to me,", which was some- 
thing that Cicely could never have endured. This vit^^^ 
of the entertaining qualities of a town history was oncv^ 
my own, and it sometimes surprises me yet to refle.-^t 
that I have lived to put my name to such a volume. 
Dull and dry it seems to a stranger, but to us who can 
read between the lines it will be, I know, a real, live 
book, in spite of all its mistakes and omissions. I ex- 
pect correction, hearty and plentiful, as soon as it comes 
to be read, and shall receive it with gratitude. Such is 
the advantage of writing a book which deals only with 
facts and not with opinions. I am conscious that the 
genealogical notes are often incomplete, and it may be 
asked why certain families have their genealogies given 
with some fullness, while other families, no less import- 
ant or interesting, receive no mention at all To this 
question I would humbly answer that my services have 
been limited by my ignorance. That is, if I happened 
to know something of a family line I put it down as 
well as I could, but seldom found time to make mauv 
inquires in regard to lines with which I was not famil- 
iar. Furthermore, I will confess tha'. I have sometimes 
gazed in wistful silence upon a semi-acquaintance, 
longing to ask questions about grandfathers and great- 
grandfathers and similar things, but mindful 'of the 
fact that of all bores the worst is the genealogical bore 
when it would seem that there is something meddle- 
some in his boring. This is the less creditable to my 



610 HISTORY OF WESTPORT 

enterprise since I have never, in a single instance, met 
with anything but the most prompt and pleasant re- 
sponse to any question I found courage to ask. 

No one, I suppose, is allowed to choose the one thing 
by which he is to be remembered most when action 
shall have ceased, and thought can no longer make it- 
self known. But could I choose, I would be satisfied 
always to be remembered as one who put some years 
of hard and happy work upon the history of my native 
town, and made it to be known forever by another 
name, — the name of Bessboro. 



HISTORY OF WESTPORT 6U 



"Thus much is saved from chance and change, 

That waits for me and thee. 
Thus much — how little! — from the range 

Of Death and Destiny." 

— From '^Praxiteles and Phryne' 
by Wni. Wetmore Story. 



INDEX. 



Academy, 381, 388, 461 

Agricultural Society, 458,472 
Aikecs, 285.432, 439, 596 

Alden, 371, 543 

Allen, 413, 419, 444 

Anbury, 137 

Angier, 302 

Armory, 504 

Arnold. 125, 130, 243. 

526, 598, 603 
Avery, 270 

B 
Bacon, 457, 592 

Baptist church. 206, 266, 304. 

319. 340. 366. 

370. 397, 405. 

420, 444, 456, 

499. 
Barber, 167, 171, 221, 223.286 
Barnes, 277,517,521,527 

Barron. 274 

Basin Harbor, 173, 181, 185, 

242, 248, 259, 

272, 307. 
Battle of Northwest Bay, 132 
Battle of Plattsburgh,266, 431 
Battle of Valcour, 132 

Bessboro, 2, 107, 150, 599 
Bibliography, 595 

Boquet river, 41 

Boquet affair, 257 

Boundary Commission, 114 
Boutwell. 345 

Brainard's Forge. 366 

Bramau, 200, 249. 265, 504 
Brown, John 458, 479 

Burgoyne, 136 

Button Bay, 115, 138 



Call. 380 

Camp meetings. 352, 368,421, 

469. 
Carleton, 114, 132 

Carroll, 127 

Cemeteries, 27 

Champlain, 77 

Church trials, 420 

Civil war, 501 

Clark, 378 

Climate, 70 

Clinton, 144 

Cole, 205, 208, 350 

Coll, 215 

Commission to Canada, 127 
ComDany A. 513, 554 

Comstock, ' 229, 369 

Congregational church, 352, 
393, 417, 499 
Congress, 134 

Convention, 434 

Corlear, 83 

Costume, 363, 460 

County se^t, 212 

Crown Point, 84 

Cutting, 332, 353, 369, 596 



D 



DeLano, 


288, 358 


Dialect, 


73 


Dickens, 


422 


Digby, 


136 


Doctors, 


488 


Douglass, 


242, 457 


Duuster, 


288, 322, 537 


Durfee, 


205. 410 



E 

Early settlement, 177, 186, 237 
Eddy, 390, 495 



INDEX. 



Elizabethtown, 
Everest, 

F 

Falls, 

Felt, 

Ferris. 219, 

Ferry,' 172, 

Finney, 

Fire, 

Fisher, 

Floyd, 

Franklin, 

French and Indian War, 

Freshets, 365, 

Frisbie, 168, 265, 271,287, 

Folks I Used to Know, 



]69IHenderson, 
605 Heraldry, 
Higby. 
Hiukley, 
Hod^kics, 
Holcomb, 
Holt, 
Howard, 
Hunter, 



200 
201 
605 
416 
227 
580 
226 
594 
127 
86 
471 
305 
163 



G 
Geology, 15 

Gibbs, 411,533 

Gillilaud, Elizabeth 3, 116 
130, 141, 182, 184, 260 
Gilliland, William 105, 112, 
142, 183, 598 
Goff, 453, 457 

Greeley, 355 

Gross, 388 

H 

Halstead, John 187, 191, 208, 

215, 344, 364, 439 

Halstead, Piatt R. 251. 268, 

285, 307, 322; 360, 

441, 596. 

Halstead house, 188. 345 

Hamlets, 19 

Hammond, 220, 355, 455 

Hardv, 203 

Harper, 228 

Hatch, Charles 195, 313, 342, 

471. 
Hay, 119, 376 



217 

597 

387 

226, 604, 607 

320 

221, 238, 255, 479 

465 

301, 341 

285, 401. 576 



I 



Indian occupation, 76 

Iron, 197, 213, 404, 438, 443, 

451, 453, 468, 557, 563, 

587. 



Jackson, 451 

Jenks, 217 
Jogues, 79, 592 

Johnson, 144 

Joubert, 510 

K 

Kellogg, 387 

Kent, 372 

Kinney, 471 



Lazarre, 270 

Lee, 402, 450, 487, 541, 597 
Librar}-, 583 

Lighthouse, 575 

Livingston Patent, 155 

Lobdell, 169, 227, 249, 286, 303 
Loveland, 193. 373, 419, 439, 

473, 504. 
Low, 226 

Lumber, 360 

M 
Maps, 40, 85, 109, 148, 159, 

187, 218, 313, 317, 

394, 427. 
Macdonough, 250, 267 



[NDEX. 



Mack, 


457 


Patents, 




150 


Masons, 


350. 463 


Pattisou, 




409 


McCormick, 


156 


Payne, 


406 


. 574, 589 


McKeozie, 


603, 607 


Peddlers, 




497 


McKinuev, 


356. 371 


Pierce, 




348 


McNeil, " 270 


, 285, 332 


Pipes, 




477 


Medical society, 


488 


Pirogue, 




180 


Meio-s, 


451 


Plank road. 




443 


M. E. church, 305, 


319, 340, 


Platts, 




182, 600 


350, 370, 


382, 396, 


Pollard. 




375 


406, 445, 


500. 564 


Ponds, 




59 


Merriam, 


347 


Population. 12. 


357, 


459, 476, 


Militia, 


249, 265 


49J 






Modern history. 


579 


Post office. 


321 


337, 416 


Mill brook, 


204 


Productions, 




13, 357 


Millerism, 


427 


Putnam, 




99 


Mill to w Q , 


105, 129 








Morf^an, 


157, 213 


Q 






Mountains, 


55 


Quebec map, 




40 


Murders. 


593 








Myrick, 316, 343 


, 348, 438 


R 

Railroad, 




457. 579 


N 




Rannev, 




391 


Name, 


2 


Ray, 




230 


Newell, 227. 286, 


320, 356^^ 


Raymond. 




117, 135 


491 ; 556, 


607, 608 


Raymond's Mill.' 


5.12C 


. 145, 603 


Newspaper, 413, 423, 


428, 435, 


Reveille, 




233 


440, 595. 




Revivals, 


351 


353, 369 


Nichols, 


227 


Richards, 




218, 382 


Noble, Geu. Ransom 


245. 255. 


Riedesel, 




139 




•257'. 


Ring, 




172 


Noble, Henry Harmon 43, 409 1 


Rivers, 




41 


Nor til west Bay, 


3 


Roads, 




33, 566 


Norway Furnace, 


560 


Rock Harbor, 
Roe, 




172 
570 


O 




Rogers. Robt. 




89, 102 


Osborne, 


456 


Rogers, Piatt 


XIV, 


152, 154 


Osgood's Mill, 


153 


156, 


173, 


180, 182, 






185, 


197, 


242, 291 


P 




Roman Catholic 


chui 


ch, 590 


Page, ;432 


495, 574 


Root, 




378 


Papineau war, 


399 


Royce, 




XVI 


Park man. 


178, 426 









INDEX. 



Sawyer, xii, 360, 362. 367, 370, 


Trainings, 




283 


374, 437, 462, 510 


Troy, 




344 


Schools, 170, 177, 339, 381. 


Turner, 




413 


383, 447, 462, 490 


U 






Schuyler, 84, 114, 116, 126, 140 


Uniforms, 




280 


Seventy-five, 21, 557 


V 






Shedd, 390 


Valcour, battle of 




132 


Sheldon, 225, 474 


VanVleck, 




443 


Sherman, 290. 408, 409 


Village maps, 187 


313 


317 


Sisco Furnace, 451,588 








Skene, 101, 141. 599, 604 


W 






Skene's Patent, 150 


War of 1812, 




240 


Slaves, . 182 


Wadhams, Bishop 


327 


601 


Smus^glin^, 241 


Capt. 




544 


Smith, 242, 429 


Gen. 255, 


285, 


325, 


Sdow, 226 


337, 


475. 




Soldiers of 1812, 284 


Washington, 




147 


Songs of 1812, 277 


Webster, 




605 


Southwell, 226 


Westport Farms, 




586 


Spencer, 393 


West port Inn. 




582 


Stacy, 227 


Wharves, 295, 354, 


396, 


444, 


Steamboat. 209, 309. 417. 422. 


467. 






436, 444, 446, 466, 496 


Whitney, 




202 


Stevens, 473, 525. 526, 596 


Williams, 




157 


Stevenson, 290, 408, 409 


Wiltse, 


XIV 


, 600 


Stone. 311 


Winans, 




210 


Supervisors, 169,170,572,607 


Woolsey, 


154 


241 




Women of the War, 




545 


T 


Wrecks — Troy, 




344 


Taylor, 345 


McDonough, 


417 


Temperance, 360, 397, 424, 


Champlaic 


5 


576 


447, 448. 


Webster, 




468 


Tompkins, Gov. 245 


Sheldon, 




473 


Town meetings, 169, 297 


Wright. 173, 243. 


254, 


257, 


Town records, 29:- 


264, 284, 


324. 




Tract, Split Rock 15^ 








Tract, Iron Ore 158,21b 


Y 






Trafalgar, 26b 


Young, 223, 389 


,411 


607 



A 



f *' '^^''\ ^^K*° J' 










% 














